Pod Insights Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard Nikki Glaser About this episode Nikki Glaser (Alive and Unwell, Someday You’ll Die, Not Safe with Nikki Glaser) is a comedian, actor, and television host. Nikki joins the Armchair Expert to discuss why Dax’s name has good joke texture, her plea for people not to have veneers during the apocalypse, and feeling embarrassed that her name had to take up space in Ralph Feinnes’ brain. Nikki and Dax talk about growing up resentful that she wasn’t born as pretty as she could have been, wanting the approval that comes with being extraordinary, and why Dax thinks Nikki is the Taylor Swift of comedy. Nikki explains becoming sober from comments and cigarettes, getting permission for her joke about Benny Blanco and Selena Gomez at the Golden Globes, and addresses her fear that she’s secretly a mean girl.
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Transcript 25,736 words · 4 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Dax Shepard? Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Rather and I'm joined by Modest Mouse.
0:04 Speaker 01 Hi.
0:05 Dax Shepard? Do you know Modest Mouse is going on tour this summer? And I really want to see them.
0:09 Speaker 01 Oh, my God.
0:09 Dax Shepard? They're not coming to the West Coast.
0:11 Speaker 01 Oh, well, do you think they'll send us some merch? Because I would really love a shirt that says that.
0:15 Dax Shepard? Modest Mouse, will you send us some merch? We should just go buy some merch. They were just here in the fall. I saw them.
0:20 Speaker 01 Oh.
0:21 Dax Shepard? They were here in the fall? Yep. They did a good news tour. They're doing a southern tour. I saw Asheville's on the list. So maybe while I'm in Nashville, I can go see them somewhere. Anyways, that's not who our guest is. It's not Modest Mouse. I do love Modest Mouse. Um, our guest is Nikki Glaser. This couldn't have been more fun. I am so delighted.
0:42 Speaker 01 So fun.
0:42 Dax Shepard? We decided to explore.
0:45 Speaker 01 Our history.
0:46 Dax Shepard? Our history. It was so fun. I really, really, really like her. She's a stand-up comedian, an actor, and a television host. Her credits include Nikki Glaser, Someday You'll Die, great stand-up routine, F-Boy Island, Welcome Home, Nikki Glaser, Not Safe With Nikki Glaser, Bangin', and her tour. You can go see her right now, live. She is coming by you. I've looked at the list. She's going everywhere. It's a huge tour. It's called Alive and Unwell Tour. Go to nikiglaser.com for tickets.
1:18 Speaker 01 And she hosted the Golden Globes.
1:19 Dax Shepard? G squared. Big event. Please enjoy Nikki Glaser. We get support from Quince.
1:26 Speaker 01 Okay, can we talk about the fact that the holidays are already here? It's crazy. I feel like I blinked and now we're in gifting season, which I'm not really mad about because I do love giving gifts. And Quince is making it so easy to find something great for everyone on my list, including myself, because let's be honest, self-gifting is a love language.
1:46 Dax Shepard? Quince is seriously the gift that keeps on giving. Their high-quality staples are made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, and Italian leather. Full-on luxury quality at prices that won't wreck your holiday budget.
2:01 Speaker 01 It's the dream. The cashmere sweater is starting at $60, down jackets, wool outerwear, cashmere accessories. You and everyone on your list are staying cozy and looking incredible all season long.
2:12 Dax Shepard? Well, I'm going to tell you this. It just got chilly for the first time this year in California, and I'm so excited. And I'm wearing my Quince cashmere right now.
2:20 Speaker 01 It's great.
2:21 Dax Shepard? Yeah, and I am going to gift this to some of my friends. I hope they're not listening.
2:25 Speaker 01 Quince is also more than clothing. They've got fine jewelry for your significant other, leather bags for your bestie, hotel-quality bedding to set up your guest rooms, chef-grade cookware. That's an amazing thing they offer here. And it's such a good gift because people don't like buying cookware for themselves, but it's very important. And they also have five-star luggage, another good gift that people don't like buying for themselves.
2:47 Dax Shepard? Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Armchair Expert. It's the best way to support the show. This episode is supported by Helix.
3:12 Speaker 01 Okay, can we talk about how November is basically survival mode? Between the holidays, the travel, the hosting, the cooking, the everything. Sleep is the one thing keeping me from completely unraveling.
3:23 Dax Shepard? It really is the foundation. And I think people underestimate how much a bad mattress is quietly ruining their day. You wake up stiff, your back's angry, you're already behind before your feet hit the floor.
3:34 Speaker 01 That was me before Helix. I took their sleep quiz, which is so fast. It took me like two minutes. And they matched me to a mattress that actually fits how I sleep. Not a guess, not a firm or soft coin flip. It's a real match. I have a midnight mattress and I really like it. I was noticing it because I actually had to sleep in one of my other beds recently.
3:52 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
3:52 Speaker 01 That doesn't have a Helix mattress on it. And I really could tell a big difference in my sleep.
3:56 Dax Shepard? Temperature was all over the map.
3:57 Speaker 01 It was a mess. I need a new one.
3:59 Dax Shepard? Look, they've got over 20 mattress models. So whether you sleep hot, need extra back support, or you've got a partner who moves around all night, there's one built for you. Plus free shipping and a 365-night happy with Helix guarantee. That's a full year to decide.
4:14 Speaker 01 Helix has been named the most awarded mattress by Forbes, Wired, and more. So it's not just us being enthusiastic. The experts agree.
4:21 Dax Shepard? Right now, Helix is running their Black Friday sale with up to 30% off. Go to helixsleep.com/armchair for up to 30% off your Helix mattress. That's helixsleep.com/armchair for up to 30% off your Helix mattress. Helixsleep.com/armchair.
4:57 Speaker 02 In the hours and days before a podcast like this, I'm like, oh, people are just having to study me right now.
5:02 Dax Shepard? Yeah, does it make you nervous?
5:04 Speaker 02 No, it makes me feel bad because I have imposter syndrome that I'm not good. And I'm like, he's gonna know that I'm not good now.
5:09 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
5:10 Speaker 02 If he pays too much attention, he's gonna figure out that I'm a fraud.
5:13 Dax Shepard? Between the lines.
5:14 Speaker 02 Yes. If you just look at the things that are posted, you're like, oh, she's talented. But if you like get into it, you might like.
5:19 Dax Shepard? Let me ask you just a baseline. How nervous do you get for things? Obviously, you're brave as fuck. You go on stage. But like when you go to Stern, and I'm not comparing myself to that, just what's the nerves out of 10 for Stern?
5:31 Speaker 02 Well, I kind of set things up so that I can't be because I'm so worried about the roast or I'm so worried about the globes that it's almost like, oh, I have to do Stern too. So it kind of takes away from that.
5:39 Dax Shepard? Right. You don't even have an opportunity to spin out about it because it's just too much shit's in front of you.
5:43 Speaker 02 I love when things happen last minute or they kind of just are thrust upon you. I don't like to have a lot of time to think about things.
5:50 Dax Shepard? Yes.
5:50 Speaker 02 Because when I do, I freak out. So everything in my life is five minutes before every appointment. My assistant will be like, do you want 30 minutes between that? I go, for what? To think about what I've just done? So no, everything's stacked.
6:01 Dax Shepard? The first time I did Stern, I laid in bed that night anticipating every single conceivable question.
6:09 Speaker 02 Whoa.
6:10 Dax Shepard? And then planning what my response would be.
6:14 Speaker 02 That's good, I think.
6:15 Dax Shepard? I mean, it was in some way because I went in knowing, okay, I've slept with some famous women. I know he's gonna want to talk about that. I have to have a game plan for that. I'm obviously not gonna talk about it, but I don't want to piss him off or disappoint the audience.
6:27 Speaker 02 Yeah, you want to be a fun guest.
6:28 Dax Shepard? Yes. So what worked was I was like, I'm gonna pivot to addiction every time because I know he also loves that. And I'm happy to give him that. And that's just me.
6:38 Speaker 02 It's like either talk about anal or your addictions and your neuroses.
6:42 Dax Shepard? Who's Virginie?
6:43 Speaker 02 Which are all the same thing, really. Yeah, truly. Yeah, they really are. They're connected. Yeah, they're all connected.
6:48 Dax Shepard? They are.
6:49 Speaker 02 Absolutely. I tend to under prepare so that when it goes poorly, I have an excuse. I think that's also why I stack my life is so that I don't have time to prepare. So I always have an excuse for when I'm not good.
6:59 Dax Shepard? Yeah, you have some kind of plausible deniability.
7:02 Speaker 02 But it never goes poorly if I plan. Planning does work. I should just do that.
7:06 Dax Shepard? Do you do what I do, which is, and we'll go right to it. When I had heard, did you hear us talking about the Golden Globes thing?
7:13 Speaker 02 I don't like to hear people talking about me, so I did not listen, but I heard it was talked about.
7:17 Dax Shepard? Almost you have to, because people never relay it the same. I'll hear like so and so was shit talking you and then I listen to it, I'm like, that's not really what happened.
7:25 Speaker 02 No, you should listen back.
7:26 Dax Shepard? So my experience was bumping into Jesse Eisenberg. Him telling me, did you hear we were in the New York Times yesterday? And I'm like, no, I didn't know we were in the New York Times. And he said, yes, apparently Nikki had written two jokes that were too hot for TV.
7:41 Speaker 02 Too hot.
7:42 Dax Shepard? And it was in the New York Times. So I returned to my seat before the monologue starts and I'm thinking, she's gonna fuck me up hardcore. I'm sure the version she backed off of is still gonna destroy my feelings. So I, hold on, hold on, this is not to make you feel guilty.
7:56 Speaker 02 No, I hate that you were like bracing for impact.
7:59 Dax Shepard? It was more like, I have to have a response that doesn't make me look like an asshole.
8:03 Speaker 02 Yeah.
8:04 Dax Shepard? I've got to somehow find the humor in whatever mean thing she says about me.
8:08 Speaker 02 Gracious loser face, they call.
8:09 Dax Shepard? Yeah, gracious. So I'm like almost practicing.
8:12 Speaker 02 Oh, God.
8:13 Dax Shepard? Suffice to say, the whole monologue, every time it was about me, I was like, oh, okay, whew. So nothing happened. Then reality hits you and you're like, of course, nothing happened. There's so many bigger people in this room to make a joke about. Why on earth would she even make one about me?
8:25 Speaker 02 That's not why I didn't.
8:26 Dax Shepard? Okay, all to say, you do do stern the following day. And then I start seeing in the comments of our episode that day, like, did you hear Nikki's joke about you? And I wrote to several people, no, and I hope to never hear it.
8:39 Speaker 02 Yeah.
8:39 Dax Shepard? But you must know, what I then crafted in my head that your joke was, they were so fucking mean, they hurt. So bad because they were my deepest insecurities. And three days goes by and Kristen finally went and listened and she came in, she goes, the joke's nothing. Is it that you were gonna ask everyone to be on your podcast? And I was like, oh my God, where my mind was at.
9:02 Speaker 02 This is the worst part of my job is that I make people feel this way. Yeah, I want to hear about that.
9:06 Dax Shepard? None of that is to make you feel bad at all.
9:07 Speaker 02 No, no, no, I'm not taking it like that.
9:09 Dax Shepard? Okay, good. This is all the racket in my head.
9:11 Speaker 02 Sure.
9:12 Dax Shepard? And so when I'm about to do Stern, I'm also preparing for things he's not gonna say to me.
9:17 Speaker 02 Yes.
9:18 Dax Shepard? No one is as mean to me as me.
9:20 Speaker 02 No one. Ah, sometimes.
9:23 Dax Shepard? Okay, the internet exists.
9:24 Speaker 02 I will say that sometimes I've done a roast and they'll find something about me that I'm like, I thought that was just a me thing. That I say to my friends and they go, no one else sees that about you. And then someone else has seen it. And so sometimes it can hurt a lot, but generally I've bullied myself more than anyone possibly could. But that joke, the reason I didn't do it, you know, the joke was everyone from TV and movies come together for one common goal to get out of here without Dax Shepard asking them to do their podcast.
9:48 Dax Shepard? It's a great joke.
9:48 Speaker 02 Okay. First of all, it doesn't work because everyone does want to do your podcast. So I was testing it out around town and because you're not known as a podcast that's like, oh, I gotta go do this. It's funny because your name is great. It adds a good joke texture.
10:01 Dax Shepard? Sure.
10:01 Speaker 02 It sounds like a vape company. It's got a good mouth feel.
10:04 Dax Shepard? When you say sounds like a vape company.
10:07 Speaker 02 It sounds like a brand of vape. We were really trying to rack our brains of who's a celebrity in that room who people are trying to avoid a conversation with. And I don't even think we landed on it.
10:16 Dax Shepard? When I heard that was the joke, it didn't bother me at all because it's a shortcoming to mine that I won't invite anyone on, right? Cause I'm so afraid they think I'm opportunistic. And then secondly, several people there had come up to me very nicely and said, I just want you to know that was one of my favorite interviews. So my self-esteem in that category was so filled.
10:32 Speaker 02 Yes.
10:32 Dax Shepard? That it didn't bother me at all.
10:33 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:34 Dax Shepard? But when it was gonna be that I was too ugly to be with her and I'm riding her coattails and all these fears I have that people think about me.
10:42 Speaker 02 Whoa, you're so off.
10:43 Dax Shepard? I'm preparing for that. In my defense, there were many, many Buzzfeed-y type things of top 10 ugly guys with hot girls. And I made those lists for years. So I just went to, well, that's probably what's coming my way. You don't owe me an apology because you didn't do the thing.
10:58 Speaker 02 No, I was sorry that you gotta deal with that chick. There's nothing worse than feeling ugly and I feel ugly a lot too. And for me to hear you say you feel ugly is probably the way that people feel when I say it. Because I know I'm not like a total dog.
11:10 Dax Shepard? Neither was our monsters.
11:12 Speaker 02 But we can't help that we feel that way. Because to me, I'm like, how could he feel ugly? But I don't get to tell you, you don't get to feel ugly because that's your own feeling. I wouldn't make an ugly joke about someone that was actually ugly. I feel like is the thing. But you don't realize that people who aren't ugly feel ugly. So when you make the joke that you go, I only said you were fat because you're not. Or whatever it is. But everyone feels these things that anyone else would say, no way you are.
11:36 Dax Shepard? Well, the two things I hope that got to you were, A, I thought you did a brilliant job. You did such a good job and your jokes were so fucking good.
11:41 Speaker 02 Even though you were probably blacked out during the whole thing, just waiting.
11:44 Dax Shepard? Well, it was like waves of relief.
11:46 Speaker 02 I know that feeling of they're gonna say something about me and just waiting. You can't even hear, you're just kind of like.
11:51 Dax Shepard? I'm even self-conscious that when they go to her for her category, I'm like, this is such a rough look for me to just kind of be half in or out of the frame. Yeah, I'm like, should I bail out or should I commit fully? We're here together. I don't belong there, you know, all these stuff.
12:05 Speaker 02 Oh, feeling like you don't belong there when you're a plus one, if it's your wife.
12:09 Dax Shepard? I can't accomplish enough to not feel that way.
12:11 Speaker 02 A hundred percent. I was at the Grammys last night and I felt that way.
12:14 Dax Shepard? I wanted to ask.
12:14 Speaker 01 You had a whole bit there though. You had to rip off Benson Boone's clothes. That was great.
12:19 Dax Shepard? But I almost wondered if you're relieved of it there. I feel like I could go to the Grammys and be fine. I don't belong there.
12:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
12:25 Dax Shepard? It's the I almost belong there, do I don't?
12:27 Speaker 01 I could belong here, but I wasn't really invited.
12:30 Dax Shepard? Sometimes I did belong here, but I don't think anymore.
12:32 Speaker 02 I was hosting the Golden Globes and was like, I'm a fraud. I don't belong here. I'm embarrassed these people even have to listen to me. These are all A-listers. Ralph Fiennes has to know my name. Now my name is taking space up in Ralph Fiennes' brain. Angelina's only had to like sit there, listen to me for nine minutes. When you start thinking about things like that, you're like, who am I to beg for these people's attention? Even backstage, after I perform, I never really want to see the crowd because I feel like they will feel like they have to say good job. If they don't want to, and then if they don't say good job, I'm like, what the fuck?
13:03 Dax Shepard? You actually get great at delineating the difference between an obligatory good job and the
13:08 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah.
13:09 Dax Shepard? And now your standard of what a real one is becomes preposterous.
13:12 Speaker 02 Yes, and there's almost nothing good enough that anyone can say.
13:16 Dax Shepard? I want to send you at some point, someone sent me, it's great, it's from Garrison Keillor. And he talks about his faux humility, what a ruse it is. Cause not only does he want people to talk about him and think about him, but he actually wants them to kneel and pray to him as a sun god. That's really what his ego desires. He just need to be a sun god or not even play the game.
13:35 Speaker 02 Nothing. Sun god or bust. Please send that to me because it's so nice when you find that other people feel these exact same things that you feel so ridiculous feeling. I was backstage, the next presenter would be backstage as well, you know, Nicolas Cage or Harrison Ford. And I would stand at the bottom and they're like, you need to go up the steps. You're introducing them. And I go, I just want to stay down here because I don't want them to have to go, oh yeah, good job. Like they can't say nothing. They're going to feel obligated to say something. Even when I'm on stage, I won't look people in the eye because I feel like when you do, they have to go, ha, ha, ha. I don't want to coerce someone into saying good job. I want them to have to like go out of their way or because they want to.
14:14 Dax Shepard? I'm doing all those tabulations too. How exhausting.
14:16 Speaker 01 So I of course got so many texts and it was like, did you see Stern? I was like, whoa, God, I really hope he didn't see it. Also Dax is obsessed with Stern. Like Stern is his idol. Okay. I didn't realize that. I too went to watch and I was like, oh, this is fine. But then I was annoyed because I was like, he actually doesn't do this. And now he's going to do it even less and I need him to do it.
14:39 Speaker 02 Exactly.
14:40 Speaker 01 And I DM'd her and I was like, hey, we really want to have you on. Also Dax isn't the one asking people, it's me.
14:48 Speaker 02 That's why the joke didn't work. I got the sense that that's not how you operate at all. And why don't you operate that way? This is one of the biggest things you can be on. Do you not realize that? Or do you just still feel like despite it, they still don't want to?
15:00 Dax Shepard? It's my foundation. Single mother, three kids. Everyone needs something. She doesn't have enough time. The way you showed people you love them is to never, ever, ever be a drain on them in any way whatsoever. The way you would show love is to be completely self-sufficient and never need anything from you. This is a big issue in my marriage, which is she like. Likes acts of service and I'm like me wanting you to do something for me to me reads is like I don't even love your value you so I don't want to be a pain in the ass to anybody to a fault me needing things from you and favors there's no way you would like me.
15:31 Speaker 01 Everyone needs people you guys everyone needs favors and people like being asked for things.
15:39 Dax Shepard? I like being asked.
15:40 Speaker 01 I do too.
15:41 Speaker 02 So why do we think people are different than us?
15:43 Dax Shepard? Listen, I don't want to pretend that I've made no movement on this. I have. It started in a personal capacity where I'm really spinning out about something. I'm just now learning to reach out to someone who's been through this and say like, hey, I'm going through this. What was your experience?
15:56 Speaker 02 People love that.
15:57 Dax Shepard? Yes.
15:58 Speaker 02 I love it too. Everyone wants to be the sun god that people are asking advice to. Well, last night I was at the Grammys. I feel like I don't belong there. I don't want people even noticing me to go like, why is she here? Even though I was nominated for a Grammy. I didn't win. I was so mad I didn't win only because I wanted to bring my Grammy to hold it to be like, I belong. I just wanted to have a reason to be there. So I was being very small and then people were coming up to me, people I'm fans of. And my boyfriend had talked with me after we were just kind of doing a debrief afterwards. He was like, I think you have to remember that you need to go up to people next time. You going up to someone will be the same gift as Olivia Rodrigo coming up to you.
16:33 Speaker 02 Cause that was like the biggest gift of my life was someone I admire so much coming up to me to say she was a fan. He was like, but you could go give that to people. And I was like, I don't think of anyone thinking that they would want that from me.
16:44 Speaker 01 Did you talk to Taylor?
16:46 Speaker 02 I didn't. Everyone wants a piece. I will never be the one to be like, excuse me ever. It's almost rude when I do when I'm in the same room with Taylor Swift because I won't even look her way. She's like tapping you on the shoulder. It will take that because I just will never and everyone goes, go up and say something to her. There's no way that she's dying for that and a night like this where everyone's doing it. And of course she would be so nice. I know exactly how it would go down, but I don't want to take someone's energy. A way that I require their energy to be put into making great music. I don't want her to make a less great song because she had to be like, oh, nice to meet you. Oh, and like hold me as I'm crying. No, we don't need that. Something tells me she has room for both. I generally after award shows get pretty depressed no matter what happens because I'm a.
17:28 Speaker 02 Around all these famous people that I put on a pedestal and I kind of see the facade of it all and the desperation and they're all wearing uncomfortable clothes and have the fake hair in and I'm like, we're all clamoring to be noticed and a little bit disappointed when we're not. It makes me a little bit sad because I'm like, no matter how big you get, you kind of worry about who's in the room, who's looking at you, where you're seated. I kind of go through a depression afterwards.
17:50 Dax Shepard? It's seeing the magic trick a bit. You realize, oh, there isn't any pixie dust.
17:54 Speaker 02 There is pixie dust. There's magical moments where you're like, wow, that person's so talented. They're so amazing. Just even watching Chapel Rohn last night, Sabrina Carpenter, Ray, who I had never heard of, but watching her was just transcendent.
18:05 Dax Shepard? Definitely musicians, when they're doing their thing. And if you were watching the people in the room act, perhaps, but you're just seeing them not lit and not in a riveting drama and they're just people.
18:16 Speaker 01 The reason I brought up the thing is because I wanted to do a full circle and this is important to say because I was a little annoyed and I was upset on your behalf and upset on my behalf because I was like, oh, this is going to be a problem for me. So Kristin is hosting the SAG Awards.
18:31 Speaker 02 Oh my God, really?
18:32 Speaker 01 Yes. And she hosted them in 2018 and that's when I was her producing partner and creative partner. And so I wrote her monologue and I did all of that stuff for her then. And so she asked me to do that this time. So I went back to look at that original monologue. I kid you not, there is a joke that is about Marc Maron.
18:53 Dax Shepard? That Monica wrote.
18:54 Speaker 01 That I wrote. We didn't have our show yet. That is literally the exact same joke. I loved that show. My jaw dropped. I had no memory of writing that joke. And also I was like, this joke is fine. So that joke has to be fine too.
19:12 Speaker 02 That makes me feel so good. It doesn't mean anything.
19:14 Dax Shepard? And by the way, he killed, he killed his close up. Kristin showed it to me. She's like, well, I mean, look at this. We did the same thing.
19:19 Speaker 01 It's so funny. That is, makes me so happy. I was like, I wrote this exact same joke.
19:26 Speaker 02 It's so nice to hear that because I think that happens all the time where people get mad about something and you've just done it before and no one will ever admit that they've done it before. But even when I get mad, everyone's such a hypocrite. Not that you were. No, I was. But unintentionally, yeah.
19:40 Dax Shepard? I hope that got to you in our debrief as well, which is as I was listening to the monologue, panicked that I was gonna get made fun of. I was doing a personal inventory and I was going, you have done this many times. I have been on Conan making fun of the cast of The Expendables because I had a movie coming out against them and they're easy targets and I can do all their accents. Maybe Sly was at home bummed. It's hard for me to imagine that, but maybe because again, in that situation, I'm insignificant and I'm almost speaking in a vacuum. These people won't really hear me. And I was on Punk'd where we put celebrities in very rough situations and hopefully they acted poorly. And at no point did I act like I was above that. What I more was starting to feel was a kind of compassion for both of us.
20:23 Speaker 02 That's really nice.
20:24 Dax Shepard? I want to get invited to the party and the way I got invited to the party was like, yeah, you can come to the party if you should.
20:30 Speaker 02 Yes.
20:30 Dax Shepard? Punk'd. And I was like, okay, I'll do it.
20:33 Speaker 02 And then you get to the party and the people you shit on are there.
20:35 Dax Shepard? For years, I'm bumping into Timberlake and he hates my guts. And I'm like, don't you understand, buddy? I was like dead broke and that was my only chance.
20:41 Speaker 02 Oh my God. So he places you from that.
20:43 Dax Shepard? We've had him on and we talked it all through, but yeah, I would see him for years and it's like, yeah, that guy doesn't like me and for a good reason.
20:49 Speaker 02 You forget these people have feelings and at roast, I feel like everything's on the table because they've signed up for it.
20:54 Dax Shepard? We should make a distinction because I heard you talking about it this morning.
20:57 Speaker 02 Yeah.
20:57 Dax Shepard? And it's great. You're like, Tom Brady's getting $25 million. He has consented.
21:02 Speaker 02 Yes.
21:03 Dax Shepard? Everyone that said yes to the Diaz, they, am I saying it right? Diaz?
21:06 Speaker 02 The Diaz, yeah. Everyone who says yes to the camera Diaz.
21:12 Dax Shepard? Diaz? And you go, yes, that's right. Diaz.
21:15 Speaker 02 I just want to give you what you want.
21:18 Dax Shepard? Right back at you.
21:19 Speaker 02 Ultimately, that's going to track throughout this episode.
21:21 Dax Shepard? We have the same approach. There is consent. I have been invited to so many of those roasts and I'm like, I just don't have thick enough skin. I'll just tell you, I can't handle it.
21:30 Speaker 02 Thank God. I don't even think about what's going to be said about me when I say yes to the roast. I put it out of my head. I did the Tom Brady one because it was like, Tom Brady, I gotta do it. But the next roast that they threw at me, I was going to say no to because I was like, I'm too old now. When I was 35, getting called old, it didn't hurt. Yeah. I don't feel it. Not really. But at 40, I kind of feel. And I'm starting to see it. I don't want anyone pointing out something about my face that I have to then go talk to someone about. Yeah. In an office and have them draw on me and stare into my eyes and fix it, which I've done and I continue to do. I just don't want people to pay too close of attention, but then the Tom Brady roast, you go, oh, good. I'm not the most famous person here. So there won't be that many jokes about me and that's how it ended up. But the next one, I feel like I'm a little bit more famous.
22:11 Speaker 02 Yeah, bigger target next time. So it's gonna have to be someone really, really good for me to do it again. It hurts a lot.
22:16 Dax Shepard? I'm one of the only people who didn't watch a Tom Brady roast because I can't even enjoy watching it. I just think of myself hearing that. I'm very sensitive.
22:24 Speaker 02 I don't read any comments about myself. I've been sober from comments, which I think should be a thing.
22:29 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
22:30 Speaker 02 I don't think the general public has too many trolls in their comments, but if you're a celebrity.
22:34 Dax Shepard? You probably know you're a troll. If you're a civilian, you probably work with that.
22:38 Speaker 02 You should have blocked your boyfriend's ex-girlfriend ages ago. That's just a simple block, but I can post things now and not go back. How many likes does it have? Cause I just go, it's none of your business anymore and you don't get to read anything because I can't handle it. It will destroy me.
22:50 Dax Shepard? You almost need to be insecure to be funny in this way. The jock at my school never had a good burn on anybody.
23:01 Speaker 02 You don't need it.
23:03 Dax Shepard? Not only did he not need it, he honestly couldn't empathize enough. He couldn't see other insecurities because he didn't have any. You have to have them to be able to spot them in other people.
23:13 Speaker 02 Yes, that's so it. When I write roasts, I'm like, what would I want not said about me? And how do I say that about someone else? Like, how do I find the thing about this person that they look in the mirror and hate about themselves? It's a horrible way to think, but I'm able to go there because I go there for myself.
23:27 Dax Shepard? Yes, and you can smell it and your brain is really well tuned to it because you're constantly evaluating yourself. And even we had Vince Vaughn on, he was saying at a certain age, he realized he had to stop burning people because it was the kind of burns that would ruin them for two years. It's like, well, yeah, you know, he just could see it because he had them.
23:44 Speaker 02 I don't burn people unless I'm hired to do it. Even the Golden Globes wasn't a burn fest because those people weren't signing up for a roast. So it was very gentle. I think the worst thing I said was to Benny Blanco.
23:54 Dax Shepard? Single one I didn't like.
23:55 Speaker 02 You did. I got, I wrote to Eric Andre, who I heard knows. Him and he put us on a text chat together. I sent him a voice memo of the joke and he said, I'm cool with it. Let me run it by Selena and so I got permission, but I would never have done that joke. I said, you know, Selena Gomez is here with Benny Blanco, her new fiance. And Benny Blanco was here because of the genie who granted him that wish. That was the mean one.
24:14 Dax Shepard? That was probably the only one.
24:16 Speaker 02 I love that you got permission. I did not know that. I would have done that on a roast if he was on the dais. He's just sitting there. He can't heckle me back. He knows the rules. Kimmel actually gave me advice saying like, hey, reach out to people. If you have a joke that you're a little bit worried about, because I just wouldn't have done it otherwise. There's no way I would have risked making him feel uncomfortable. And even when I told him the joke, you kind of feel like, oh. But I presented like, by the way, I think you're awesome. I think you're hot. I'm talking about a thing that I think you are aware of, that I think you've even partaken in. I've heard him in podcasts talk about him with Selena. I think Santino went hard on him once. And so I think he was already aware. So I was a little bit nervous to even tell him it, but if I would have not liked him and really felt that way, I don't think I would have been able to say it. I think she scored with him, to be honest with you. I felt like it was a mutual thing, so it came from a good place.
25:01 Speaker 02 But people show up at my shows wanting to be roasted. I don't really like roasting people on the fly. It doesn't just come out of me. I don't just come at people without a reason to do it. But I think that's not just because I don't want to hurt them. That's obviously a part of it. But I just don't want them to retaliate. I was quiet in high school.
25:16 Dax Shepard? If you don't want to get stabbed, don't start a knife fight. Well, you were picky Nikki in sixth grade.
25:20 Speaker 02 Thank you.
25:21 Dax Shepard? Nikki was picking her nose in sixth grade.
25:22 Speaker 02 Yeah. And I got busted. Like a girl saw me and was like, why don't you stop picking your nose? You know where you could tell it was bothering her and then she's like, ah!
25:29 Dax Shepard? She snapped.
25:30 Speaker 02 Screams it. And so there were a lot of moments like that in school where I would be quietly doing something disgusting. And then it would just annoy someone enough. Like I was taking pencils from this kid. Never had my school supplies, not because my parents didn't provide it, but because I was just ADD. So I was always borrowing pencils and paper from my friend Ray. He would always give it to me every single day. He never didn't. And it was almost like I was annoying him. So one day I just took it. And I remember he saw me because I was like, you're gonna give it to me. And he was like, why don't you get your own pencil, you bucktooth beaver? Go in the woods and gnaw down a tree. Oh my God. And I had really messed up. My teeth were going out hard. And the whole class heard, even my teacher laughed.
26:09 Dax Shepard? Oh no, your teacher, she validated how good the-
26:11 Speaker 02 I was like, but I still need lead. I found some kind of inaccuracy in the joke. I was like, it's a false premise because pencils are more than just wood. Anyway, and then I just learned just be invisible because people will call out why you're ugly. And so I was quiet. This was fifth grade and seventh grade. And then by the time I got to high school, I was invisible because I just didn't want the boys making a joke about me.
26:34 Dax Shepard? What were your other things?
26:35 Speaker 02 It was teeth that continues. I still see weird things with them. You have perfect teeth. Are they veneers? No, but I do a thing. Please, everyone listening, don't get veneers. My friends who have done it regret it. If there is an apocalypse or something, your teeth will fall out and you will have nubs and you have no one to fix them.
26:51 Dax Shepard? Shark teeth.
26:51 Speaker 02 The nubs are disturbing. They fall out. A lot of people doing it and getting approved to do it way too soon. They're not trained properly.
26:57 Dax Shepard? Do you know Monica was on the verge of getting them? And there was like our biggest battles. I was like, Monica, your teeth are fucking perfect.
27:04 Speaker 02 Dude, Monica, if you want to fix anything with your teeth, the thing to do is you get what's it called? Composite. Bonding. Because I had like a chip on this tooth and I was like, can you just fix that? They filled it in with a tooth colored thing. And I was like, well, this tooth is kind of too far back. Can you just put tooth on top of it? And he's like, yeah. I was like, did I just make something up? Because I was gonna have that tooth removed and a new one in, but I just put tooth on top of it to make it even with the front one.
27:26 Dax Shepard? I wonder if they could build out this leaner.
27:28 Speaker 02 Build it up. Just put composite on. It falls off every month or so, but you get it put back. It's like an $80 copay. It's way cheaper than veneers.
27:36 Dax Shepard? Every month.
27:37 Speaker 02 Less painful. Bonding, but it falls out.
27:39 Dax Shepard? My dentist is currently trying to talk me into doing some fix ups on the bottom here. And then he put the temporary one on there and he showed me in the mirror. I was like, oh, well, it does look a lot better.
27:47 Speaker 02 Yeah. So teeth, an issue for sure. Having a tall forehead. One time a guy that liked me and I didn't like him back was just like, I just noticed your forehead goes on for a really long time. And so that stuck with me. And then I started seeing it, didn't notice it before. Also, hair falling out. I was anorexic when I was 18, so a lot of it fell out then. And then since then, if a hair just gets caught on something and pulls out like in a clip, I feel it all day long. It's an OCD thing where I like feel the little spot and I look at the hair and I'm like, you weren't ready. I go like, this hair's been with me through so much. Like, this was when I did the roast, like all my career moments. And I just go like, I can't believe it's just gone now. And it's gonna take so long to grow that all back. Everyone who does my hair knows if I go, they're like, they just stop.
28:31 Speaker 02 I've gotten better about it because it's an irrational fear. And I often have my friends send me like, how much hair do you pull out in the shower? Will you just send me a picture? I need verification because it only pops up, by the way, when I'm stressed out. It has nothing to do with the hair.
28:43 Dax Shepard? You're looking at a haircut that is two days old that I gave to myself.
28:47 Speaker 02 What, really?
28:48 Dax Shepard? Yeah, I cut my own hair, but it generally starts in periods of anxiety, which I've been having. So I started trimming, trimming, trimming. You saw the progression. Anyone watching would see the progression. It's a total tick till finally Sunday. I'm like, now we're shaving the sides.
29:02 Speaker 02 Will you do my boyfriend's? That's a really good cut. I love that cut. I was literally, I should have said it, damn it. I was literally gonna take a picture of you later to show, because it's good.
29:12 Speaker 01 I'll send you a picture of my hair wall. I do a hair wall.
29:15 Speaker 02 If you were my friend, I would never ask to see your hair wall because I can't compare it. Because you're allowed to lose bunches and bunches of hair.
29:20 Speaker 01 I lose so much hair.
29:21 Speaker 02 Not to take anything from you. You can feel bad about losing hair too, but you don't deserve to.
29:25 Dax Shepard? No.
29:25 Speaker 02 I won't hear from you about it.
29:27 Dax Shepard? It's gonna be hard to feel bad.
29:28 Speaker 01 I won't be sending you my hair wall.
29:30 Speaker 02 That's a bitch to blow dry, right?
29:31 Speaker 01 The only time I ever blow dry it is if I'm getting it done.
29:34 Speaker 02 You don't have to because it air dries glossy.
29:37 Dax Shepard? So much volume.
29:38 Speaker 01 So good.
29:39 Dax Shepard? Anyone that's been hired by Herbal Essence to be a mermaid in a commercial for your hair.
29:43 Speaker 02 Yes.
29:44 Dax Shepard? That's the stamp of approval.
29:45 Speaker 01 I didn't mean to turn this into compliments.
29:47 Speaker 02 You're allowed to have something that is just fucking perfect.
29:50 Speaker 01 Okay, speaking of insecurities, it is the only thing I am secure about.
29:55 Speaker 02 We're all allowed to have one.
29:57 Dax Shepard? One?
29:58 Speaker 01 Yes.
29:59 Dax Shepard? Okay.
29:59 Speaker 01 I know you want me to say I love my boobs.
30:01 Speaker 02 I hadn't noticed yet, but I was like, I think I can make up three things.
30:04 Dax Shepard? My wife has given her many pieces of artwork that say, I have perfect tits and great opinions. So when people are buying you those kinds of paintings, I think you could have two.
30:13 Speaker 01 She did also once say, Monica doesn't get naked very much, but one time I was with her and she was changing and she took her bra off and her boobs went up.
30:24 Speaker 02 Oh my God. Chris is so funny. She is. Great tits over there, but you're not proud of those? I'm proud of them when I'm naked, but I don't love it in clothes. Got it. I'll agree with you. When I have a bra that makes me look more stacked, I feel a little bit chunkier. Exactly. It like distorts your body. It does. Okay, I hear that. And then just, you know, body. This week it's my leg skin. I like saw some pictures from my tour that were backstage. There's a crepiness starting.
30:49 Dax Shepard? What is crepey?
30:50 Speaker 02 Like an old circus tent that's been weathered. It's okay. It has to happen. People can't lie to me and say it's not. My girl's chat is like, it's not. I don't see it. And I go, look, and I give evidence.
31:00 Dax Shepard? We would say in the automotive world, if the paint is kind of orange peely, is that what we're talking about?
31:05 Speaker 02 Picture like a wasp's nest.
31:07 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
31:07 Speaker 02 You know, that's like, kind of like a saggy texture.
31:10 Dax Shepard? Droopy papier-mache.
31:11 Speaker 02 Yes. That kind of crepiness skin on the thigh and then the skin above the knees is starting to fold over. And there's like a deep line here that bothered me. I heard they do. But then I'm looking at my schedule. I go, when am I getting a brow lift? When am I getting my knees done? My knees done? Never gonna get my knees done.
31:29 Dax Shepard? I hope we get submissions from knee surgeons.
31:32 Speaker 02 Please.
31:32 Dax Shepard? The reason you were able to host the Golden Globes was you had cleared your schedule in January for a month to do some operative.
31:40 Speaker 02 To do whatever Dr. Diamond told me would make me look like I hadn't done anything.
31:45 Dax Shepard? Yeah. So you had already kind of scheduled this little buffer in January and then got the call. I feel like it's very serendipitous.
31:52 Speaker 02 It really was. I would have canceled anything for it, but it was nice that I didn't have to because I never take a break. My vacation would have been just healing with like straws in my face draining.
32:01 Dax Shepard? Have you seen the pictures of those flights home from Turkey? I want to fly there just to fly back with all those guys. For anyone who's not seen it, please Google this. Yeah. Ninety some percent of the passengers on these flights home from Turkey, the men are all bandage up. They've gotten hair transplants. I guess it's affordable there.
32:19 Speaker 02 And now they're all starting chin surgery too now. I just read. Yeah, chin implants.
32:24 Dax Shepard? In Turkey.
32:25 Speaker 02 I don't know if they do it in Turkey, but that's the new male plastic surgery thing. Everyone's going to be doing it. Like if you've seen some. Leading men starting to look a little bit more leading. That's probably what's happening because it's a subtle adjustment that makes face look more masculine. And that's kind of what it's trending towards. There are nine year olds who are like mewing now to get that jawline. It's sad when men start to have the same insecurities that we've all dealt with as women for so long. But they've always been there.
32:49 Dax Shepard? We've always had them, but they're just evolving. For us, it was all like body and strength and Schwarzenegger and lifting weights and trying to be big and strong. I'm still dealing with it, obviously.
32:59 Speaker 02 And you guys don't get makeup.
33:02 Speaker 01 Yep.
33:02 Speaker 02 You just have to be what you are. So it makes sense why we're like, why do they just get to be who they are? Cause they don't really have a lot of options, so they might as well accept themselves.
33:10 Speaker 01 That's a great take.
33:11 Speaker 02 I just came up with it.
33:13 Dax Shepard? That's really good. Yeah. When you're a dude and you look in the mirror, you go, that's that.
33:17 Speaker 02 Yeah, like we had too many options.
33:19 Speaker 01 Yep.
33:19 Dax Shepard? I was even watching this and I'm like, God, my nose has gotten so bulbous. I think most women would shade and it would not look bulbous. And I'm like, I'm not gonna do that.
33:28 Speaker 02 You can't. There would be options. If you have a zit, you can't cover it. You just have to have a gaping wound and we get to stuff it with dirt clay and wonder why it keeps reinfecting and coming back.
33:40 Dax Shepard? Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. We get support from no bull. The holidays can get hectic. You finally hit a post summer routine and suddenly you're on hosting duty every week.
33:56 Speaker 01 That's when you really need to ground yourself.
33:58 Dax Shepard? Exactly. And that's why I keep my training routine through the holidays. It's the whole no bull idea. There's a no bullshit training brand built around consistency, honesty, and just putting in the work. It's not about adding more pressure to an already packed schedule. It's about having the gear and the habits to move through the season your way. My personal favorite, all three of the shoes are fantastic. The Outwork, the Outwork Flex and the Drive Two. I like the Drive Two because it's a hybrid and I lift, of course, but I also like to do what's called box jumps.
34:29 Speaker 01 Ah.
34:30 Dax Shepard? Right? I do a lot of jumping onto a little platform and I want a little more flexibility and boy, do they deliver.
34:35 Speaker 01 And if you're a cardio person and you're running and you also need to be lifting.
34:40 Dax Shepard? And the style is banging. I don't know what to say. Beautiful style, very breathable, very, very comfortable, lots of support. They were built for lifting.
34:48 Speaker 01 They also make a great holiday gift. You know, I love gifting, a purposeful one that actually supports someone's goals and routines. And it's not a gift that just ends up in the back of a closet.
34:57 Dax Shepard? Stay stronger than the season. Head to nobolproject.com all holiday season to shop new deals every week.
35:11 Speaker 02 That sucks for men with acne that they don't have makeup, even though we look like it's like a little anthill.
35:16 Speaker 01 Yeah, you can still see it.
35:17 Dax Shepard? But it's preferable.
35:18 Speaker 02 I used to pick at my skin because when I was malnourished and had anxiety, it was just open sores around my face. I used to be bulimic too. That's why I quit throwing up. Like, thank God it was a vanity thing because I was sick of cleaning toilets. And I was also sick of having mouth acne that I would pick at. I would be nervous backstage before going on, pick at it. I could feel it bleeding because I'd do the check and I'm like, oh my God, there's blood. I'm walking with blood. Then I'd put something on it to like cake it up. And I'm like, okay, I hope it stays. And then you walk out and you're like, good evening Milwaukee. And you smile in a way, it's like crack. And it starts running down your face. It would happen so often. Thank God acne is behind me in my life. That was a huge struggle for a really long time. And seeing my sister never have to deal with.
35:57 Dax Shepard? How much younger is she?
35:58 Speaker 02 She's 18 months younger, but perfect silky, thick hair, never had to get braces, born with straight teeth, veneer teeth, never had acne. Yeah, but does she have a good personality? She does. Like, she doesn't even know she's hot. Like, she could have been a model, actress, all these things. And she's just like, yeah, she's pretty amazing. I don't know if she's content. That's good. She's like a mom of three, just making it work.
36:19 Dax Shepard? She's a teacher.
36:20 Speaker 02 She was a teacher. She actually stopped teaching and now she's out bringing.
36:23 Dax Shepard? Okay.
36:24 Speaker 02 That was rough. She taught for 10 years Spanish in our old high school. And she was great at it, but it was just too hard. She has insecurities, just like everyone else. But I had a rough time growing up with that.
36:33 Dax Shepard? Was she outgoing?
36:34 Speaker 02 She was much more popular than I was. The boys in my grade liked her and had crushes on her. She'd be the type of girl that I'd have all my girlfriends over and my sister would come in and talk to us. And then my sister would leave and they'd all go, oh, she's so pretty. Gosh, a reaction that I would never get. Just that kind of thing of like, wow, that's what I want. Just strangers telling my mom that this child should model. And then I'm just standing there, rude things. And I was just sensitive. So I I picked up on it like that's your value and I don't have it. And so just really resenting that I was born not as pretty as I could have been. My parents DNA made that. Why did it fuck up this way? I used to yell at my mom, be like, you knew there was ugly in your family tree. And you risked it with me. And she's like, you shut up.
37:14 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
37:15 Speaker 02 She would be so mad at me, but I used to get really venomous about how mad I was. And people saying, you look nothing like your sister, like that over and over. Always getting told I look like my dad, which no matter how hot your dad is. Yeah, you don't want to hear it. You never want to hear you look like your dad. I see it now and I'm like, okay, I'll take it because he is a gangly guy. And you saying your hair is the thing. My legs, I used to be really insecure about because they're more muscular. And my sisters were just model thin, but now I love my legs. I get a lot of compliments on it and people are like, what do you do for them? And I'm like, it's just my dad's legs. Like I just got lucky. And it made me realize that so much of what I resent women for having is just same as my legs. Of like, I didn't do anything for them. I just was born with this and I just got lucky in this one. I have a dad bod for half of my body. It gave me some perspective of when I attribute perfection onto people.
37:59 Speaker 02 I shouldn't hate that girl for being hot. She didn't mean to be.
38:02 Dax Shepard? She didn't choose it.
38:03 Speaker 02 It's not her fault.
38:05 Dax Shepard? None of us chose any of it. Just got it.
38:07 Speaker 02 Exactly.
38:08 Dax Shepard? No one went to the store and picked it out.
38:09 Speaker 02 And that's what I like to remember when I'm feeling ugly is like Nikki, okay. So there's a lot of action going on when you wiggle your arm. The other day I looked at my arm in the mirror. I just saw a straight on and it looked like a scrotum hanging, a ball sack. And my friends were like, no, it doesn't. And I sent them a picture and they were all quiet afterwards. Like they couldn't say no, it does. And that's okay. But I was like, if I could snap my fingers and not have that, I would. Clearly I'm not choosing this. It's not my fault. Why do I have to feel like I failed in some way or I'm a bad person? I didn't choose this. I wouldn't want this. Yes, there's probably exercises I could do to make it go away, but I don't have time for them. That doesn't make me a bad person. I just get wrapped up in all the things I should be doing. You could afford a facelift. Why aren't you getting one? You could afford this laser treatment. Why aren't you doing it? Even the more money you make and the more opportunities you have to have avenues to look hotter.
38:54 Speaker 02 If you don't do them, you feel like you're failing in some way and I hate that feeling.
38:58 Dax Shepard? It's wholly unfair, which is, I think I had all the same feelings you did growing up. But I had the freedom as a dude to go, yeah, that's not going to be your thing. And girls, thank God, did date guys largely because of how confident they presented and how funny they were. And so that is the great injustice. I was able to transcend it in some way, not that I ever fell in love with how I looked. I just was like, oh, we're not going to think about this anymore. And we're going to just do this other thing and that's going to work.
39:27 Speaker 02 Yes.
39:28 Dax Shepard? That's a gift of being a dude.
39:30 Speaker 02 I appreciate you saying that. Yeah, decreasingly so.
39:33 Dax Shepard? Yes. Thank God it's evolving. But in the eighties,
39:37 Speaker 02 Yes.
39:37 Dax Shepard? I could kind of make that proclamation.
39:39 Speaker 02 The men and boys did the choosing back then. But that's why I think it's changing because now girls, women, all of us ladies, we are, you know, more educated, like
39:49 Dax Shepard? You're making more money.
39:50 Speaker 02 We can be more things than sex objects. Exactly. And so I don't have to just say yes to your proposal. And it used to just be like, oh, this guy is asking me out. I guess I have to say yes. You're waiting to be asked.
40:01 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's a really good point.
40:03 Dax Shepard? There's a ton of stuff going on. There's like evolutionary stuff. There's how the society has run for the previous 300 years. A guy that was confident and had a good personality was going to probably achieve high status because he would be able to do that through work. If he was super smart. So he would be able to climb the status run. Whereas for women, the status run wasn't fully available for anything other than being gorgeous.
40:26 Speaker 02 Who could make the most babies for the village? Who could watch the pot boil? Who could take care of the kids? It all leads itself to, do they have the hip to waist ratio that suggests they can carry more children? You want to get mad and think it's so vapid for men to assess us that way. And yeah, I appreciate you saying it's because I was a man and I was able to shift like that. I never arrived. I was like, I just have to keep pursuing being hot or talented in some way, which I wasn't talented. That was the other thing. I didn't find, because I wasn't able to get big and loud and funny because I didn't want people to go, well, you're also ugly. That wasn't an option to be big. So I just waited till I found a talent and I didn't have one until I started standup comedy. Literally tried everything and that was really frustrating.
41:07 Dax Shepard? Do you think you were just biochemically anxious? What led to, do you think the annex? It sounds like you had pretty good parents.
41:14 Speaker 02 I have the greatest parents imaginable. I think it's, I had a mom that just never liked the way she She looked and was never pretty, never thin enough, but I was really tuned in with celebrity culture. So all that stuff got in. I wanted to be famous. So it's like, I need to look like Paris Hilton, Jennifer Aniston.
41:27 Dax Shepard? Yeah, I want to go there and you have to look a certain way to go.
41:30 Speaker 02 Yeah, there's no option.
41:31 Speaker 01 But is it because you wanted to be famous so that if you were, that's the world telling you, you are hot?
41:36 Speaker 02 Not even hot, very uncomfortable when someone's like lusting for me. I want the approval that comes with it outside of someone actually putting anything in me.
41:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, attractive.
41:44 Speaker 02 I just want people to be like, I want to be her.
41:46 Speaker 01 Yes.
41:46 Speaker 02 I guess that's what I wanted. Oh, that's so embarrassing to admit.
41:49 Speaker 01 No, we all, no.
41:49 Speaker 02 I used to want that. My parents, we love watching TV. I wanted to be on TV. I wanted to be seen by them in that way and be like, wow, that's extraordinary. I'm an Enneagram three, so my worth is determined by if I am extraordinary. I do things that people go, holy shit, how could she do that? I was always like looking for that in terms of looks. I felt like that was the only way to achieve that. I was a fine actress, but just didn't get cast in things in high school and was like, that's the only way to be on TV is to act. And so audition for theater school, didn't get into any and was like, what am I gonna fucking do? I've said this before, I was like, I'm just gonna have to kill myself someday because that is a failed life. If my only dream in life is to be on TV and be a personality, like a performer, and I don't do it and I just have to watch people
42:31 Speaker 02 do it forever, I'll eventually have to kill myself and that sucks. Oh, I have to do that someday. It was kind of like a thing I have to do someday, like, oh, it's not now, but soon.
42:40 Dax Shepard? Is bolder, you did it when you were 18 for the first time.
42:42 Speaker 02 Yeah.
42:43 Dax Shepard? And you were only at boulder for a while, a year?
42:45 Speaker 02 Yeah, a year. The first thing I was really good at was not eating. That was the first thing and I was like, whoa, talk about getting confidence from something because this just came to me a couple of months ago when I was trying to like, think about what led me to do that and why did I stick with it and why did I get such a rush from it? Because when you're coming up in diet culture in the 90s and early 2000s, being able to not eat is maybe the best superpower imaginable for a woman. Every person around me is trying not to eat the brownie, not having dressing on the salad, and I have no problem doing that. I get high from it. I struggled with my weight earlier on and was trying diets. I was never fat, but needed to drop probably 10 or 15 pounds. I worked at a pizzeria and just ate too much and stopped playing field hockey and stuff. So I got a little bigger and people were starting to notice. So I tried stuff to lose weight. It was hard. I remember being like,
43:28 Speaker 02 I wish I could get anorexia. It's the same joke that most women make. And then it happened because I got nervous about a boy who liked me. I had been really scared of boys and sex and I hadn't kissed a boy. It was my senior year of high school. I think I'd kissed one boy and it was a truth or dare thing, so it didn't count. It was a guy I really liked for so long. I won a date with him because I rigged a singled out type contest at our school where I had my friends tell me who to pick because I wanted to pick this guy Mike. And so I had them kind of do a signal to me of like who to eliminate. So I got a date with him and then he seemed to want to go on this date that I won for this charity school thing. We had like a date planned and I was so nervous about it. I just couldn't eat that day. And that shows up quickly on me and my face and someone said something the next day that was like, you look great. And it was a girl whose opinion about me meant so much and I was still nervous.
44:13 Speaker 02 And so I just kept going as long as I could. And then it was just, let's just never eat again. I was just too young to understand this isn't going to work forever.
44:22 Dax Shepard? So this is the fun kind of overlap with Monty. Monty had his very specific event in her life.
44:27 Speaker 01 Oh yeah. Dairy Queen. I was in sixth grade and a boy said he couldn't date me. He liked me, it seemed, but he couldn't date me because my parents worked at Dairy Queen. They didn't work at Dairy Queen, but a lot of Indian people worked at Dairy Queen. So he couldn't date me because I was Indian. So then that was obviously the moment where I was like, oh, so no one can date me. That's a fundamental thing about me. That's a no for people.
44:54 Speaker 02 He represents everyone because why wouldn't he? You're in sixth grade.
44:57 Dax Shepard? Because you like.
44:58 Speaker 01 And I liked him. You know, so it's like the people I like don't like this about me. So this is going to be a fun life. His parents worked at Culvers. Was it a Capulet's Montagues thing?
45:08 Dax Shepard? They were at a Foster's. It was a competition.
45:11 Speaker 02 That seems like White Castle. Did you even say like, but they don't. Did you protest it at first or did you know what it meant?
45:16 Speaker 01 He didn't say it to my face. He said it to a friend. A friend was like, why don't you ask Monica out? Oh, this is important. He said, I would, but so it's not like, I just don't like her. It's like, I would, but I can't because she's Indian, basically. And not because she's Indian, like I don't like the culture. That would make me feel different probably. You know, that's the subtext. If I'm being generous, I guess.
45:40 Speaker 02 Stay with you to this day. I am fucked up for life from that one thing.
45:45 Dax Shepard? Her thing, to paraphrase it, was.
45:49 Dax Shepard? Any boy she would like wouldn't like her because she was Indian. So she shifted to being in love with people she knew that issue would never present itself. So it was Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.
45:59 Speaker 02 Oh, you never have a chance with them.
46:00 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
46:01 Speaker 02 Exactly. It's like they're so unavailable. So they can't reject me. Yes, I'm picking the quarterback of the football team when I'm a sophomore. We'll never even have an interaction, just unavailable men. You can never get rejected by them. Yeah. Does this go on for you now? Now, really, I'm just like, if it falls into my lap, that's great. I do so little pursuing of dating, but still it's because rejection is still so horrific for me. It's not worth it. I understand being that guarded because it can destroy you for decades. Without it, I'm good, I'm thriving. Am I? I don't know. Yeah, obviously people have asked you out through this. When you're pursued, do you feel like they're flawed in some way for liking you? Yeah, they have bad taste. Yes, I get it. Totally.
46:46 Speaker 02 I need someone with good taste. So we're in a bad cycle here. Oh, my God, you're so wrong. Like, you are such a prize. My boyfriend, I've been with him for like 13 years off and on. And I'm not even joking you, it was just this past May that I accepted that he has great taste and he likes me and I have to trust that. Yeah. And he chose me. I didn't trick him in any way. And that I am really spectacular. It only was this last May, and that's why I liked him for so long too, was because I thought I was winning him over. He was better than me. So it takes forever, but I think just one day you'll get it. I have no doubt. What happened in May? We were breaking up, but it was funny because I was doing it in public so it wouldn't get too heated. I just didn't want it to end in us yelling. Not that we're yelly people, but I felt like it could go that way. And I just didn't want it to go on too long, but then the restaurant closed.
47:29 Speaker 02 And so we didn't have time to break up and we were supposed to go to a concert right after this. So we still go to the concert because we're in this nebulous stage of it seems like it's ending. But at the dinner when we're breaking up, I go, I'm bored. And he was like, okay, but. You're one of the most boring people I've ever met. This was the week right after the roast, by the way, when I was one of the most Googled people on the earth. So it was kind of funny to me that he said that because I'm like, that's not my insecurity. I kind of laughed when he said it. I know what he meant because I don't like doing things. I'm kind of like a homebody and I don't really like socializing too much. I don't like outdoor activities and sports. And he likes all those things and I'm always insecure about not liking that stuff because my mom's like that. And my dad is a really big go getter and my dad always punished my mom for that unintentionally, but made her feel bad about, you just like to sit on the couch and watch TV and nap and why don't you ever like to do anything?
48:12 Speaker 02 And I always was like, I don't want to be like that, but I am like that. But Chris said to me, you're one of those boring people alive. By the way, if you're bored, it's because you're boring, that old trope. And he said to me, even though you're boring, I accept that about you. I'm never going to throw that in your face. I'm never going to make you feel bad about not wanting to do things. And for whatever reason, I don't know if it relates exactly to realizing I'm lovable, but it does because I was like, I can't change the fact that I like to lay on the couch and watch TV and be on my phone. I've always felt guilty about that and I always felt like he was gonna at some point just get fed up and he should be with a girl who likes hiking and likes jet skiing and likes to go meet people and talk to the waiter about how their weekend was. He deserves that. And I used to say that to him. He's like, stop saying that. And he's like, I don't want that. And I just trusted him for the first time.
48:55 Speaker 02 Like he's not going to use it against me like my dad has with my mom.
48:59 Dax Shepard? Well, what's really sad is it's all self fulfilling prophecies. You're almost forcing him to leave you.
49:04 Speaker 02 I was because he loves me unconditionally and I just felt like there were some conditions that I was holding back that once he finds this thing out.
49:10 Dax Shepard? They were yours though, which is crazy.
49:12 Speaker 02 And I've since let him know those conditions and he's just like, yeah, I know you smoke weed sometimes and hide it from me.
49:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, he's like, you're not tricking anyone.
49:18 Speaker 02 Like, and by the way, I know I told you I quit smoking weed, but like I do. And he's like, you're not hiding it while I've noticed. I just figure it's your thing. I don't need to be involved. It doesn't seem to be ruining your life. The whole time I'm thinking, I can't believe I'm hiding this thing from him. I feel so bad. We still don't talk about it. That's the thing. I'm trying to figure out a way to work on stage because pot smoking for me is like this thing I can't quite let go of in my life that I come back to and I feel, oh, it's not great for my life, but it's not too bad. So I have a lot of guilt about it. And I don't tell him when I do it. And sometimes I'm around him and I'm a little high and he doesn't seem to notice. And maybe he does, but he doesn't. From me.
49:51 Dax Shepard? Maybe he doesn't care.
49:52 Speaker 02 Yeah, he does. He used to in the past, I think, and that's why I have it in my head. Cause he's broken up with me over it before. Cause I was like, I want to be someone who gets high before a Fleetwood Mac concert. And he's like, when are we going to Fleetwood Mac? I'm like, I don't know if we're like at a Wilco show. I just want to be able to like smoke a joint that someone passes me. He's like, I don't know this person.
50:08 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
50:09 Speaker 02 Cause it wasn't who I am. I was just trying to push him away. But anyway, I was thinking about it. I'm like, am I allowed to do this thing that I don't need to tell him I'm doing every time? Even though I feel guilty about it. Why don't tell him every time I shit? As far as he does, I don't shit. I close the door every time. We don't talk about any of my issues in that area. Maybe it's that, but I'm rationalizing it.
50:27 Dax Shepard? This may be helpful. We had this incredible sex therapist on Alexander Catahoukas. She was incredible. And my question was, should people who have been sexually abused, who now desire, for lack of a better word, some kind of kinky sex? Should they feel guilty or it's not their fault? And if that's what they enjoy? And she goes, no, it's totally fine. And there are a lot of sexual abuse survivors who will be in like subdom relationships. And it's very crystal clear. If you have shame and secrecy around it, it's a problem. And if you don't, it's not a problem. So I would argue all you've got to do is be honest about it and there will be no issue.
51:05 Speaker 02 What if I'm honest on a podcast he doesn't listen to? But he could listen to.
51:10 Dax Shepard? Yeah, he and my wife could bump into each other and have no idea this conversation took place.
51:14 Speaker 02 Exactly. All the places I talk about it openly, he doesn't listen, but he could. Like it's there. We talked about it in therapy and I've cried about it because he doesn't want to know. Why is it bad? He's never had any drug in his life. He's never drank. He's never done anything. It's not even a Christian thing. It's a control thing. He notices friends being drunk and he's like, I don't want to look like that. And so he just never did. And I think it's a little bit of the dare program. There's a Reefer Madness type of like, Yes. You're a loser a little bit. He doesn't want a girlfriend hitting a bong and it's dirty.
51:41 Dax Shepard? But there has to also be a little bit of the fact that you had a problem drinking.
51:44 Speaker 02 And that is what he would say. Nikki, why don't you say that part to them?
51:48 Dax Shepard? Right. Which of course I'm gonna be deeply interested in because I don't drink either.
51:51 Speaker 02 Do you have a weed issue? Have you ever?
51:53 Dax Shepard? Have I? Yeah. Leading up to a big relapse.
51:55 Speaker 02 Right.
51:56 Dax Shepard? It was a tricky one and I can relate to everything you're saying because alcohol is cut and dry for me. It's black and white. I have a drink on Thursday night, you will see me Sunday and I'll have gotten coke and all these things will happen. Very predictable. There was some period where a gummy, I don't know. I go to sleep, I sleep better. There's no wreckage, there's no out of controlness. I don't crave it like the other stuff I crave. And then having been clean and sober for 16 years and going, and I also don't like that I would need anything.
52:21 Speaker 02 Yeah.
52:22 Dax Shepard? Right? So I know the racket.
52:23 Speaker 02 What's that? You mean that?
52:25 Dax Shepard? Nicotine. But I am at total peace with this. There's no secrecy.
52:28 Speaker 02 I love that you're holding it out because I could be friends with people for years and I'll see you do it. I go, when did that start? Years? They can hide it so well. So there's a shame around the stuff.
52:37 Dax Shepard? If I'm hiding, there's something to be looked at. If I can't do it out in public, then that's kind of my clue. I need to get comfortable with one or the other. Not do it, or I gotta just own it. And then people around me, I guess I'll trust to tell me. I just can't have the zone where it's like, I have a secret. Because then you can't even evaluate the thing. Because actually you're evaluating your feeling of having a secret, not even your feeling of using weed.
52:59 Speaker 02 The way that I was able to stop smoking as much weed once was to, when I did it, you know, I was smoking from like pipes during COVID. It's dirty and it felt bad. These are like crack pipes. They're the same. I one time went out before a set on Hollywood Boulevard to smoke a little pipe. And I turn around and a homeless man, we have the same pipe.
53:18 Dax Shepard? And he's smoking rock.
53:19 Speaker 02 It's the same green color. Like we're both blocking the wind.
53:22 Dax Shepard? Hoping no one sees you.
53:23 Speaker 02 Yeah. It was a real eye opener and I kept doing it for months after that. But if I just go, I need this, you know, it's bad, but you're not a bad person and you're doing your best.
53:32 Dax Shepard? I don't think you can even evaluate what the weed is until you detach the secret from it. The pit of disapproval and angst is more about the secret.
53:41 Speaker 02 You're right, because when I'm honest about what weed does for me, it's the one thing I still have guilt over in terms of all my addictive behaviors. I was like, what does it give me? To be honest, it just gives me instant relief from depression, from suicidal thoughts. And it medicinally offers that to me in a short term. It can sometimes backfire and I say a dumb thing. Or I wouldn't do it before something like this. And I have in the past.
54:01 Dax Shepard? I think it's a harder one to evaluate for people because it doesn't have the kind of wreckage that other stuff does. You get DUIs, you fucking smack your friend, you fall down in an elevator and pee your pants. None of that stuff happens.
54:14 Speaker 02 That's the tricky part of it. It picks me up out of a depressive state, like almost nothing else I've ever found can. Alcohol used to, but it's so obviously sloppy. But weed, I can function. No one calls me out for it. People don't really notice. I can see it and I'm sure people do notice. It affects me being smart and funny, but then sometimes it makes me smarter and funnier.
54:32 Dax Shepard? What if you're the third smartest and funniest and not the second or first?
54:37 Speaker 02 Oh, I'm way down.
54:38 Dax Shepard? Well, no.
54:38 Speaker 02 No, see, that's unacceptable, but it's.
54:40 Dax Shepard? You're Taylor Swift of comedy.
54:42 Speaker 02 That's the only thing I've ever wanted to hear in my life. So thank you for that.
54:45 Dax Shepard? Love you. The amount of people have asked us to have you on. The amount of people that had seen.
54:50 Speaker 02 Someday you'll die.
54:50 Dax Shepard? Someday you'll die.
54:51 Speaker 02 I talk about you in that, by the way.
54:52 Dax Shepard? I know.
54:53 Speaker 02 And I hope you don't think that's an ugly joke because I want to be very clear about that because I say that I'm a rangy broad in terms of my looks. If I have enough makeup, I can look like Kristen Bell, but my boyfriend every day wakes up to Dax Shepard. That's a woman looking like a man joke, but you are a hot guy. So I felt like I could say that and not hurt your feelings.
55:07 Dax Shepard? Yes, of course I watched it because I am narcissistic enough to know if there's a joke that has me in it. I'm certainly going to find out. Was it the thing I'm fearing? And I thought I didn't care at all. I took it as a dude joke.
55:18 Speaker 02 Yeah. Okay. Because as you were saying the stuff before, I'm like, oh my God, that other joke, would he interpret it? Because it wouldn't even occur to me that you could, but I'm glad you did it.
55:24 Dax Shepard? Yes, I watched it. I thought it was a great special, but I just want to say so many people had immediately taken to our comments. That's when I had the sense, oh, Nikki's really, really huge. There's some connective tissue with you and Taylor. In that you have worked your fucking ass off. You decided I'm going to be this thing, whether you think I'm going to be it or not. Bad news, I'm stubborn and I'm going to be this thing. There's something very relatable and I think people can see themselves in you. I see how my oldest daughter, the gift Taylor Swift has given my family, when I watch the women in my life, the impact that she has on them. How she can make them feel in the confidence, in the jubilee. It's such a crazy gift.
56:07 Speaker 02 It's awesome.
56:07 Dax Shepard? And it's because in some way you could be her. I mean, you can't. But also you can.
56:13 Speaker 02 Taylor had something to prove, even showing up on the scene, coming out as a country artist and then making it into pop music and winning album of the year for Fearless. And then people saying like, other people wrote that. And she's like, well, the next album I'm gonna write all by myself. And look how great it does. She definitely is inspired by people doubting her. I wish someone would have told me earlier on, whenever someone's like, what would you tell your younger self? Any young people listening or any people with kids listening, if your kid isn't good at something right away, like a natural, please know, and you might not even know this because I don't think I would have known this as an adult had I not experienced it. And I think we all hear this, but we don't let it sink in. The difference between great and good is just hard work. Someone can be great and some people are just naturals, but mostly anyone can reach those levels if you just work hard enough. You can catch up to anyone who in high school is the quarterback, just work hard enough and you can be Tom Brady. That was all work he put in.
56:58 Speaker 02 I just wish someone would have told me that because I always thought growing up, it was like, you either got it or you don't.
57:04 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
57:04 Speaker 02 I was just reading a book called The Anatomy of a Breakthrough because I just felt stuck. After the Golden Globes, I took a month off and was just like, how do I even write again? Like, I don't even know. It has really been helping me. There's this one part about the guy that freestyle climbs. I haven't seen that movie because it just makes my legs feel weird, even thinking about him, but reading about how when he approaches a climb, everyone's like, what if you don't do that? What? He's like, I've done it so many times before with the ropes that there's no chance anything bad will happen. There's no room for error. And if the wind is off that day or that temperature or there's rain or I'm feeling weird, it won't happen. It's so practiced that it can't go wrong. And I realized, oh my God, I totally freestyle loaded the Globes and the Tom Brady roast, which I didn't even intend to. I was just like, oh, just do the set as many times as you can to try out which jokes are best.
57:50 Speaker 02 I said the Globes monologue so many goddamn times that it was locked in and people were like, are you nervous? And I was like, no, because it's like, it's just one other time. It's just one other time. There's no room for error. I don't like doing things that are room for error. That's why I don't like doing improv. That scares the shit out of me. Crowd work is a struggle for me. I need to know it'll go the way I want it to.
58:10 Dax Shepard? Sure. So I'm a control freak as well, and I was very OCD as a kid and lots of tics and I have a lot of control things, but I love these zones where I surrender to no control. It's so pleasurable because I'm fucking strangleholding so much of life. My routine and my schedule is psychotic and sadistic. And so when I have these pockets, these things I can do where I actually surrender to it, it's bliss. Do you have anything in your life?
58:38 Speaker 02 I know that sexually, I like baby girl style stuff.
58:41 Dax Shepard? Oh, tell me, what's baby girl?
58:43 Speaker 02 You know, the movie Baby Girl where she likes to be talked to like a dog, trained, like good girl, that kind of stuff.
58:48 Dax Shepard? That kind of a submissive.
58:49 Speaker 02 Yes, not that I'm a hypersexual person anymore, things are changing hormonally, but things that I've been into and the things that I watch, it's the girls out of control. She's not telling anyone what to do. She's being told what to do. So I find it there. But I'm trying to think of any other, doesn't pot sort of do that? Oh my God, you're so right because sometimes just because I want to feel adrenaline, I'll smoke before I go on stage because I'm like, you gotta try bitch. Like you can't go on autopilot. You gotta think about what you're doing. You're high. Are you going to remember even what you're talking about right now to finish this sentence?
59:18 Dax Shepard? You said you smoke pot to give yourself anxiety, which I found interesting.
59:21 Speaker 02 I like anxiety. I think you might too. Do you?
59:23 Dax Shepard? I like being awake. Yes. And that's why I like the chaos because it brings me to a level I can't reach normally. Improv, like you're saying, the element of failure is so present that a new zone of my brain wakes up. I get the extra dopamine and adrenaline and neuropein and all this stuff. I can access a part of myself, the survivor in me, and I love it.
59:43 Speaker 02 I love being like, oh my God, I don't know the end of this joke and I'm telling it right now. Is it going to come to me? Yes. The craziest moment of my life, I don't even like to think about it. You know, you have those moments where it's like near death moments. You don't even like to think about when you almost walked in front of a train or something. Cause you're like, oh, it was at the I heart awards or something and Usher was hosting and he pulled me up to dance, which was really awkward. It was hell. I got like last on Dancing with the Stars. I'm really deep in security of mine is that I can't dance. And so I just don't like to be forced and with Usher, like the best dancer in the world. And it was in front of Machine Gun Kelly and I remember Megan Fox is sitting next to him and they're all kind of watching this awkward thing. And I brought as my date, my Dancing with the Stars partner who had seen me fail already and I'm dancing in front of him.
1:00:25 Speaker 02 I'm trying to get some kind of control back in this narrative of dancing and I'm just thrust into this. And Usher was singing a song. Right before it was a Michael Jackson song. I just didn't know the words to. Everyone else seemed to, and he put the mic in my face.
1:00:36 Dax Shepard? Oh, no.
1:00:38 Speaker 02 Usher, if you would have given me one of your songs, I would have nailed it, but I don't know this obscure. It was to me. This is literally my nightmare. So that already happened. This is not live on TV, but it's the whole audience. It was at the Dolby or something. It's thousands of people and it's kind of after the show and Usher is just dancing. And so I had to do this awkward dance. And then I was like, Usher, can I just have the mic? I just need to do one thing I'm good at, which is talking into a mic. So I was like, can I just say how embarrassing that just was? I got last on Dancing with the Stars. I did my Dancing with the Stars bit. I always say on Dancing with the Stars, I got first, voted off. And I say in front of my dance partner, Glub Sevchenko, who is as hot as his name is disgusting. And so I have my bits. I wasn't trying to make it about me. I was just trying to get a couple of jokes in. And I go, everyone in the audience, I want you to know what I'm feeling right now.
1:01:21 Speaker 02 The thing you're worst at in the world that has been determined on ABC that you are terrible at.
1:01:26 Dax Shepard? It's certified.
1:01:27 Speaker 02 Then you have to do it in front of Usher. And I go, Machine Gun Kelly? And, and I forgot. No. Megan Fox's name. As I'm saying, Machine Gun Kelly, I'm going, and it was probably to me 20 seconds of like, what is her? And at the last second, it just Megan Fox, but it was so close. And I go, what would have happened had I not remembered? That's why I can't fucking just riff. Like, I can't be trusted. It's like your life flashes before your eyes of not remembering Megan Fox's fucking name. But thankfully it came out, but one of those moments. You're always putting yourself in bad situations.
1:02:02 Dax Shepard? Have you though?
1:02:03 Speaker 02 Risky. Even last night, yeah.
1:02:04 Dax Shepard? How about this? I did a live show for a Formula One podcast I had. It was a disaster. We have done many, many live shows and they go great. They're so fun. We did this one in Vegas, a bunch of drunk people. No one knew who the fuck we were. It was terrible. And we had to do a full hour. That's what we were hired to do. And I, at least at this age and having done enough stuff, about 10 minutes into it bombing, I go, oh, this is great. This is going to be so memorable for all of us.
1:02:32 Speaker 02 That's what I learned from the corporate gig I did in October. That was the worst I've ever bombed in recent memory.
1:02:37 Speaker 01 Tell us that.
1:02:37 Speaker 02 It was more money than I've been offered for a gig ever. You know, can't turn it down, kind of money.
1:02:42 Dax Shepard? You said that. It looks like a telephone number.
1:02:43 Speaker 02 It looked like a phone number.
1:02:44 Speaker 01 Amazing.
1:02:45 Speaker 02 Yeah. And I even think I said, this doesn't seem ideal because it was for a vague hedge fund, not even a hedge fund. It's like a group. It was like a conference for rich people to go and do fireside chats and just different activities to learn how to destroy the earth and profit from it. And it was just a bunch of media moguls, but I didn't read the fine print. I was just like, yeah. And then it shows up way sooner than I thought. It was like, oh, well, that's in October. I think I said yes to it in August. That seems forever. And then it was like the day before I hadn't done anything for it. I had shows all weekend. I just was like, I'll just write some jokes right before it. So I was underprepared for sure. And then I'm trying to memorize all the jokes that I'm writing before. And because I saw it going bad because they sent me a picture of the setup and it's on a beach and it's in the round.
1:03:27 Speaker 02 People don't realize it's so important for comedy. You need a ceiling. You need dark in the room. So people can laugh at inappropriate things and not feel like their coworkers or their peers or their wife is gonna be like, you relate to that or you think that? So they need to be in the dark. Standup comedy, I think, shouldn't be a surprise. I don't think anyone's ever excited about a standup comedian coming in at the end of a long day. It was like 9:30 at night before the DJ. They just wanted to get drunk and get loose. The end of the long day of all these meetings and they're like, and we have a special guest and I'm doing an hour. Comedy should really never go more than 40 minutes. And Kevin Hart's there, but he just has to do a fireside chat. I actually ran into one of the guys that was at the show at the Golden Globes party and he was like, I was there.
1:04:09 Speaker 02 Or no, he was like, I booked you. He's the guy that booked me. He's like, I want to have you back because we didn't nail it for you. It wasn't good. I'm sorry. It was a beat. I did the same thing you were saying. I want the redo for the story because now I told the story of this gig on Kimmel and it made it all worth it. This would have just been a thing I never remember.
1:04:24 Dax Shepard? You would never be telling this story if it went well.
1:04:26 Speaker 02 And I wouldn't have grown from it. Now I can accept those gigs and not have fear because I know what needs to go into them to do well. So Kevin Hart was there. I say hi to him before it and I'm like, this is gonna be bad. Don't watch. He's like, no, I'm gonna stay. By the end of it, he was gone because I was like, let me do some Kevin Hart roast jokes I didn't do at the Tom Brady roast. And he was long gone. I walked Kevin. What's his name? The host of The Bachelor was there, the one that was canceled. Chris Harrison was there for some reason. He didn't say hi afterwards. It was so lonely. You have to walk through the crowd. It would have been nice to just go backstage. And they literally, after I said goodnight, couldn't hold the applause. The stage was as big as this table. I just stepped two feet and by the time I hit the sand, the applause was over. And then it was just crunch, crunch, crunch through the sand, my heels just digging in. I don't mind if an audience actively doesn't like me or is like, that joke's inappropriate.
1:05:09 Speaker 02 Cause I'm like, I know it's not and you're just uptight and you need some kind of identity, which is to be offended. And I can come at you, but when they're just like embarrassed for you, they're right.
1:05:19 Dax Shepard? When you can feel it.
1:05:20 Speaker 02 And the pity, the guy at the party was like, well, I will say you were doing jokes about molesting your nephew. And I go, wait, no, no, no, no, I did it about the idea of molesting. And he was like, what's the fucking difference? And I go, well, there is one. It's nuanced. I go, you're so right. The material was so inappropriate for that event. But that's what my act is right now. So next time I do these gigs, I would love to do them, but I want to be hired to roast the people. And then I will have a plan. I won't have to go into my dumb act.
1:05:46 Dax Shepard? Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
1:05:59 Dax Shepard? Okay. I want to go to two things before we wrap up because you've given us a lot of time already.
1:06:03 Speaker 02 My God, I could see her all day.
1:06:04 Dax Shepard? You went to 22.
1:06:06 Speaker 02 Taylor Swift shows.
1:06:07 Dax Shepard? On the Eras Tour.
1:06:08 Speaker 02 I'm so jealous.
1:06:09 Dax Shepard? And you have this history. I don't know. We can do like a really short.
1:06:13 Speaker 02 You can take that.
1:06:15 Dax Shepard? I went once. I took my 11 year old to Lisbon and it was the greatest.
1:06:18 Speaker 02 Oh my God.
1:06:20 Dax Shepard? But you did 22 and you have this history. And this is one second because I wasn't even aware of it. But in some BuzzFeed thing, you made fun of her in some capacity and ended up in the doc. Now I saw the doc and I loved it and I don't remember that part at all.
1:06:33 Speaker 02 I'm so glad. I did some interview ages ago, but when I get jealous, I think mean things. I was really into her at the time and I just saw the friends she kept. I was like, oh, I don't fit in there. So I just said something about how she just has model friends and commented about her size too. And then in the documentary comes out, she was struggling with eating issues, which you have as well. Been through in my life, but at the time I was also not in recovery for eating stuff. So I got myself to a good place weight wise that no one would know I had food issues, but I was still chasing that and I wasn't good at it anymore, looking like that. I couldn't do it. And so I resented it. I mouthed off on a thing that I thought no one would hear, which doesn't excuse it because now I know it gets out and it ends up in her documentary. And I felt just so bad, not because I'm busted, people know I'm mean or something.
1:07:18 Speaker 02 It was just, she saw that. Maybe she wouldn't have seen it had it not ended up in the doc, but she definitely saw her own documentary. Like she's seen me say that. And that's the person I like the most in this world that brings me the most joy. I made them maybe feel sad, couldn't handle it.
1:07:31 Dax Shepard? I heard you say that you were unable to listen to her music.
1:07:34 Speaker 02 Yeah, it was embarrassing. If you have a bad run in with someone or you make someone uncomfortable.
1:07:38 Dax Shepard? They remind you of your fuck up and you haven't made any amends.
1:07:42 Speaker 02 I was like, you don't deserve her music. You hurt her. You contributed to her wanting to go away.
1:07:47 Dax Shepard? You wrote her an apology and tried to get it to her through agents.
1:07:50 Speaker 02 And their response when I first was like, hey, I think I'm in this documentary because I just heard my voice in the trailer and my friends were like, that's not you. You would never say that. And I go, you're someone because I say it about you bitch. They were like, you love her. I'm like, I know, but you should hear what I say about you. Anyone I'm jealous of, this was the old me. I really have done so much to not be a gossip.
1:08:05 Dax Shepard? Well, you learn lessons through hurting people, feeling really bad about it and then deciding.
1:08:10 Speaker 02 You're allowed to make mistakes. I allow that for myself now. At the time, I don't think I even allowed it as much, but I learned from that because I knew that a letter wasn't going to get to her or I wouldn't be able to know it. So I was just like, I'll just put out a public thing and that's the only way. And I didn't even know if she would see it or not, but as soon as I did, I was like, I put out apologies that wasn't just trying to let the public think I'm okay again. I knew it was about me letting go of that because I could listen to her music afterwards. I was like, okay, I repented. I really do feel bad. I owned it. I said everything that I needed to, to not excuse myself, but to explain myself and actually say why this won't happen again and be honest. And I just felt like now I'm finally, in the words of Taylor Swift, clean. Yeah. I love that song. Yes. And then she commented on it.
1:08:51 Dax Shepard? Oh.
1:08:52 Speaker 02 I didn't even know I was on a date later that night and I put my phone away just to pretend like I was a girl that doesn't check her phone and like, oh, I don't need it. He was a comedian, went down to go do a set and I instantly checked my phone when he goes down. And I have dozens of text messages being like, did you see? And she wrote something back. I only read it once because I can't handle it. It was very nice from my memory of it. It was just something of like, this means so much to me. And it's a great example of being able to explain your vulnerability. She just got it. She only got what I was doing. And I love apologizing now when I can really get down to why it happened and own it. And be like, I was just insecure. I was jealous that you're thin. I want to be your friend. I didn't see myself fitting in and I lashed out. And that's what it is. And it's nothing more, it's nothing to do with you. Sometimes I find myself when I slip up, if I am really close to someone who maybe works with me,
1:09:36 Speaker 02 they're working with me because I want them to have to be friends with me. And I obviously want their expertise with me. But then they kind of grow up and they're ready to spread their wings and fly. I've in years past said things that would maybe make them feel insecure. And they called me out and I go, what is this? And I go, because I don't want them to leave. Yeah. It's because I know they're so talented. Good for you for realizing. It's a thing I have to check because I've had it done to me.
1:09:57 Dax Shepard? Back to the boys, a confident version of them wouldn't want to be friends with you.
1:10:01 Speaker 02 Yes, or unless I pay them, they're not gonna need me. And it's just not true. I've been able to keep those friendships. But it's just the more I can admit my flaws. Like you said, if I'm not ashamed of it, if I can say, yeah, I was jealous of Taylor Swift for being skinny. I went on this podcast and I talked about J Lo. I watched J Lo's documentaries and I used to be not a hater, but kind of like a lot of society or culturally. So things about she can't sing or can't act or she can't dance, whatever. Like a lot of hate because everyone's so fucking jealous of her. Yes, look at her. She's so beautiful. She actually can sing really well. She's a passionate, fearless creator and performer. She made a documentary with her own money to tell the story of her rekindling romance that ended up not going well. She knew it could have maybe not. Put this out there for people to consume and judge and people did.
1:10:45 Speaker 02 That's ballsy and I'm actually kind of jealous of that kind of risk taking. And so what do I do? I have to shit on it. And then I watched her documentaries and I was like, man, she's fucking cool and I'm lame. Any kind of hate I have her is pure jealousy. And I talked about it on a podcast. She reached out to me and now we're friends.
1:11:01 Dax Shepard? Get out.
1:11:01 Speaker 02 Love that. And now I couldn't love her more. I see totally through every preconceived notion I had about her. And it's freeing to admit when you're insecure.
1:11:08 Dax Shepard? For me, it's two sided. It's either I'm jealous or They're displaying a side of myself I hate so much. So like my issues with J Lo maybe in the past are like, why do you at the Super Bowl game in the front of the road? I've been like, why do you need so much attention?
1:11:24 Speaker 02 Yes, because you secretly want it, but you're not willing to do what she's doing to get it.
1:11:30 Dax Shepard? Endless attention and I hate that about myself. By the way, I don't even know if she needs attention.
1:11:34 Speaker 02 Let's say it's the same motivation. Well, she went and got it. You are scared people are gonna go, he needs attention. So what do you do? You shit on her so that you sell yourself the story that people are gonna say that about you if you do it, which causes you to not do it. I always make fun of people who do cringe things online. Not always, I used to. If someone's doing something comedically and taking a chance or showing their stomach fat or doing something that's really vulnerable.
1:11:56 Dax Shepard? That you told yourself you wouldn't be lovable if you did.
1:11:59 Speaker 02 I'll make fun of that person to my friends behind their back. Because then when I want to do something like that, I'll go, Nikki, don't because people will make fun of you. I have to create a narrative so that I don't take those chances. Usually everything that I hate on is jealousy.
1:12:11 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:12:11 Speaker 02 It's kind of fun to unpack it and kind of go, oh, it all whittles down to that. The more exhausting it gets to be anyone but myself, the better for me. That is the best thing about aging is that it just becomes too tiring to try. And then people end up liking you so much more when you don't.
1:12:24 Dax Shepard? Yes, exactly.
1:12:25 Speaker 02 I could have just been doing this whole time, but you really can't because you can't get there any sooner than you get there.
1:12:29 Dax Shepard? Go tell my younger self something. I don't even play that game. I didn't listen to anybody. That was part of my charm. Even if it was me who came back, I wouldn't listen to me.
1:12:37 Speaker 02 Do you try to tell your kids stuff?
1:12:39 Dax Shepard? Pretty much I don't. I try to avoid that. I'm living, I'm modeling, they'll pick some things up, they'll see other things don't work. They're very bright. I think it'll work.
1:12:46 Speaker 02 That's good.
1:12:47 Dax Shepard? Okay, so have you though ever had one on one with Taylor?
1:12:50 Speaker 02 Yeah, I actually met her before I was a huge Swifty during her red tour. I got invited because of a show on MTV and they invite us backstage and I got a moment with her.
1:12:58 Dax Shepard? Nothing post apology.
1:12:59 Speaker 02 No, nothing post.
1:13:00 Dax Shepard? And you probably don't want that.
1:13:01 Speaker 02 Not even. I want to just be a fan. I just really like being a Swifty and I want to keep it that way. I like putting her on this pedestal that she probably doesn't even want to be on. I like feeling like a little girl when I'm at the shows. That's why I go to 22 shows. It's four hours of the best dopamine release I've ever had in my life. I feel like the happiest person I've ever felt. I can't risk losing that. So right now it's what we. Have is so perfect of her being this pop star that I admire.
1:13:25 Dax Shepard? As you get more successful, it's harder to be a fan. It's still fun to be a fan.
1:13:30 Speaker 02 Uh, it's the best.
1:13:32 Dax Shepard? That's worth preserving.
1:13:32 Speaker 02 I love being a fan. It's one of my favorite things.
1:13:34 Dax Shepard? Okay. And I, I, so I'm going to preface this by saying truly you must know, I don't care how anyone gets sober. I have zero judgment about how anyone does it. I am intrigued and fascinated that you read a book.
1:13:45 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:13:46 Dax Shepard? 12 years ago and quit drinking Alan Carr.
1:13:49 Speaker 02 Alan Carr, the easy way. Everyone loves that.
1:13:52 Dax Shepard? So what happens? Cause I'm just curious.
1:13:54 Speaker 02 I think I heard Ellen on Jay Leno's Tonight Show talk about quitting that way, quitting smoking. I heard maybe Ashton Kutcher, it was a couple of celebrities had talked about it and I was like, oh, I'll just get the book to see what happens. And then I was ready to quit smoking and I just was like, I'll read it because you get to smoke while you read it. That's the thing that made me go, okay, great. And then by the end of it, he goes, have your last cigarette, but I bet you don't want one. And he's right. You just don't want one. And I could not have explained that to my smoking self, but I promise you it just worked on me. And so drinking, I wasn't ready to let go of anytime soon at that point. I quit smoking, I think 2009. So I'd need two more years with drinking. And then I hit a bottom in Cleveland after a weekend of shows. I was supposed to go see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame one morning, but I was hung over and I couldn't go.
1:14:34 Speaker 02 And I'm like, oh, this is affecting me seeing Britney Spears sequined outfit from the 2000s VMAs. This is becoming unmanageable.
1:14:41 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:14:41 Speaker 02 Like if I can't see John Lennon sunglasses or whatever. And so I was puking all day and I had already bought the book because I just knew I was circling the drain. And I just needed that one moment to go, I'm going to read it. So as soon as I flew back to New York, I grabbed the book and I started reading it, the drinking one. If you're interested in this, people go, which one? Cause there's lots of them, just whichever one, the one for women, the one for controlling drinking, whatever you want to do. I don't think you can really control drinking, but give it a whirl.
1:15:05 Dax Shepard? They're all by Alan Carr.
1:15:06 Speaker 02 Yeah. Alan Carr died of lung cancer oddly enough, because he smoked for like 30 something years, but eventually created this method, quit. It robs you of any reason you have to do it. Any excuse you have of like, it makes me more social. Let's piece that apart. Actually, we're going to prove to you without a question of a doubt that it doesn't make you more social. It makes me more brave. Okay. Well, then firefighters would be getting loaded before they ran into burning buildings. They're not, it's not bravery. It makes you dumb. That's the bravery. You're saying things that you wouldn't normally. They say
1:15:32 Dax Shepard? Your frontal lobe's offline.
1:15:34 Speaker 02 Exactly. You're becoming dumb. It's dominating you. And so all the excuses that you had, it relaxes you, then it proves that it doesn't. It actually causes way more anxiety. So you're kind of left with no reason to do it. They found that for a lot of people's addictions, I guess, when they have no reason to do it, they don't need to do it because you're always making excuses of why you need it. And that's why I haven't read the pot book yet because I'm not ready to give it up because I know it'll work.
1:15:57 Dax Shepard? You probably know enough about it. You come in and quit drinking and then you're left with the reason you drank. And then the meetings and the steps are about addressing not the symptom. You've quit the symptom. So did you find that you were now someone without their medicine?
1:16:14 Speaker 02 It went to pot. It went to sex, just things that weren't as detrimental. It was really the hangover that I was avoiding more than anything. So it was food mostly because of my history with anorexia. After I gained enough weight to like not be at death's door, I just went to like binge eating and bulimia and was always in some kind of eating disorder state. Then it was like 10 years. It was COVID where my life got small and then the food just filled up. So my life was so busy because it kept me from eating all the time. And then I was just uncontrollable around food, unmanageable. And that's when I was like, I need help for this and got back into a thing and realized, oh, I didn't look at the spiritual element of it.
1:16:49 Dax Shepard? So would it be fair to say the drinking, for whatever reason, on the continuum, that book was sufficient, but that the eating, you couldn't have read a book?
1:16:58 Speaker 02 He has a book for emotional eating and it did kind of work. It did kind of work. But it is a spiritual problem that I have. I don't think people know that if you're starving yourself, or if you're bulimic, or if you're overeating, or whatever it is, there's a place for you. There's a 12 step for you. That might not sound like the place you should go because you might be an undereater, but there's a blank anonymous that has a place for you that I didn't know about and didn't consider because I was like, that's not for me. But it helped so much. And I've been sober from starving myself for four years. I've been off gum for four years. Gum was a big thing for me. I would get sores in my mouth. It was like cigarettes, two packs a day of this trident. It's this trickier thing because you have to find your own sobriety.
1:17:37 Dax Shepard? Is it like SLA in that you define your bottom line?
1:17:41 Speaker 02 Yeah, you define your own thing. So mine for Wow, it was don't eat in bed. And then I was like staying in hotel rooms where I was like, well, there's no table. So let's amend this one. Now mine is if you're hungry, you don't get to keep going. You have to eat. So the first second that I'm like, I'm hungry. I don't get to be like, oh, yeah, let's ride this out. That's not negotiable.
1:17:56 Dax Shepard? You don't get horny at the thought of-
1:17:57 Speaker 02 Because I used to get like, oh, my body is eating itself. I'm doing something productive. Let's ride this. You don't get to do that anymore. Other girls get to do that. That's a very common thing I hear about all the time of like, I skipped breakfast. I don't get to.
1:18:08 Dax Shepard? You don't have that luxury.
1:18:09 Speaker 02 No, I can't be trusted with starving.
1:18:12 Dax Shepard? I don't have any opinion on whether people should go or not to a 12 step program, but for me, I could have maybe white knuckled it over the last 20 years, but I would have missed out on so much shit, learning how to be honest with myself, learning how my fears were, learning how to say sorry to people.
1:18:27 Speaker 02 I think that's a big part of it too, is just hearing people you would never, ever hear their stories and just learning how to be just vulnerable around strangers and feeling in a safe space. It's good for everyone. I'm always like, I wish there was one for just a normal person. And there is, it's called out on because everyone can qualify. Has a codependent. Everyone has someone in their life. So there is a room for you.
1:18:47 Dax Shepard? One of the early premises of this show was me going, can you have an AA meeting in public? Cause I feel bad that people can't experience this. This is wild. You come in going, I'm not like anyone. I hate all these people. I'm not like them. I'm different. And then they started talking and you're like, I do that. Oh yes, I've done the exact same thing. There's a human quality to it that since I'm not religious, I don't get it there. I don't know where else I would have experienced that. What a thing to experience.
1:19:14 Speaker 02 Teaching you empathy. It's amazing. It's a lost part of our culture to share and to be a part of a community. And yeah, it gives you that, but it's a lot of work.
1:19:22 Dax Shepard? Oh, yeah. Yeah.
1:19:23 Speaker 02 That's the problem I have. But man, when you're doing it, it feels good. It's like meditating. It's always like, I have time to work out or meditate. And they say you should just meditate instead of workout. And sometimes it's just so hard to sit and meditate, even though I always feel better after it. Do you guys meditate?
1:19:35 Dax Shepard? I do.
1:19:36 Speaker 02 Same situation. I'm like, I should. And then sometimes I do. And you're right. I always feel better after, but forcing it. And same with working out. You know, you will always feel better. You've never left the gym being like, why did I do that?
1:19:46 Dax Shepard? Never happened in the history of the world. I do TM because Howard did it and talked about it. So I do take up things that I- Hear people I
1:19:53 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah. Howard sold me on that big time. That really helped with my depression for a while until I stopped doing it. It's weird.
1:20:01 Dax Shepard? I can't figure out why it was a permanent solution.
1:20:05 Speaker 02 Cause I wasn't doing it. Oh, God.
1:20:07 Dax Shepard? Fucking daily reprieves. It's annoying.
1:20:08 Speaker 02 You like take the medicine and then you're like, I feel great. And you're like, I don't need to take this anymore. Why do we all do that with everything? It's a big deficiency for human brains. I'm prescribed ADD meds and I feel so amazing on them. I feel like it's cheating. And so I won't take them because I feel like I can't Lance Armstrong life like this. I'll feel guilty. I can't be proud of my accomplishments because it's a pill. I tell my doctor, I can't take it because I feel like it makes me feel too good. And he's like, isn't that good? And I'm like, but I just feel like I'm tricking you. He's like, you aren't tricking me. You didn't want this. I am a doctor. Don't insult me like that. But I kind of like feeling bad, I guess. Or I feel like I deserve it. That's what it is.
1:20:45 Dax Shepard? You might have a story that if you're not working so hard.
1:20:50 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:20:51 Dax Shepard? That you're just not worthy of anything.
1:20:54 Speaker 02 I saw Jesse Eisenberg talking on CBS Sunday morning about volunteering during COVID. He moved back to Bloomington and worked at like a shelter.
1:21:00 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:21:00 Speaker 02 It was the happiest he ever was. We had him on too. So why did he go back to this then? Cause I was like, oh, I want, I want to go just do an animal sanctuary. I have enough money that I'd be fine the rest of my life. Why don't I just go rehabilitate goats and teach pigs how to walk again?
1:21:15 Dax Shepard? When we had Jeff Bridges on.
1:21:17 Speaker 02 I'll miss this.
1:21:18 Dax Shepard? We talked about getting crazy religious about exercise and then crazy religious about lethargy. You would expect this from him, but the peace he had when he goes, yeah, man, that's what life is. Just ride these waves. Yes, sometimes you're going to volunteer. Sometimes you're going to go make a movie. Sometimes you're going to smoke pot. Sometimes you're not. That's okay.
1:21:37 Speaker 02 That's okay.
1:21:38 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:21:38 Speaker 02 You're not a bad person. No, I think you have a lot of bad person. Yes. There's a lot of bad person driving you. Because you say a shitty thing about someone you love and then people point out, even the Taylor Swift thing. I'm like, I am a bad person. If I would have just seen that as a Swiftie, I'd be like, fuck that girl. She's a mean girl. And it's like, am I secretly a mean girl? And I'm like, I don't think so. Like part of my brain thinking I might be a sociopath, but I've learned that sociopaths don't question it. They don't want to fix it, so I can't be.
1:22:04 Speaker 01 Instead of you thinking you're a bad person, you could channel it to whoever else is probably not a bad person. The other Swifty, the other person who's writing something shitty about her. Instead of saying, I'm a bad person because I did that.
1:22:16 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:22:17 Speaker 01 Instead, it's like, I'm not a bad person and I did that. So they're probably not a bad person either.
1:22:22 Speaker 02 Yes, that does help me. I think I do that a lot.
1:22:24 Dax Shepard? We also had an OCD expert on who was explaining, the majority of OCD isn't what you see in the movies. It's not washing your hands repetitively and it's not checking the lock. It's people who are convinced they're a pedophile, but they are not. They have never done anything, but they're so worried they are. They won't watch TV shows with children. So in some way, I think there's a little bit of compulsive. You're so afraid you're a bad person.
1:22:50 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:22:50 Dax Shepard? Even though there's no proof that you are, other than a couple of fuckups that everyone has.
1:22:55 Speaker 02 That's why I like to explore on stages, my darkest thoughts. And then hearing people laugh, I'm like, oh, you've thought this too.
1:23:00 Dax Shepard? All right. So I guess that wraps it. That's interesting about the book and I dig it.
1:23:04 Speaker 02 And it's really has been easy to not drink. It's the number one advantage I feel like I have over people sometimes. Not having a kid is another one, I have to admit, has freed me up to do a lot of stuff in my late 30s and now into my 40s. That I wouldn't be able to do.
1:23:17 Dax Shepard? Although ironically, the time you're most grateful you don't drink is when you have kids and you're around other parents early in the morning with your fucking kid, because they wake up early and I'm looking at these people.
1:23:28 Speaker 02 Oh, and they're hungover.
1:23:29 Dax Shepard? Dude, if I had to be doing this, which is already hard, hungover, I don't know how they're doing.
1:23:35 Speaker 02 No.
1:23:35 Dax Shepard? That's the times I've felt the very most grateful.
1:23:37 Speaker 02 Yeah, I don't know how my mom.
1:23:39 Dax Shepard? 5 a.m. waking up if you went to bed at 3.
1:23:41 Speaker 02 Now I know why my mom was cranky and chug and diet coke like she was hungover. I'm going to cut her some slack. That is rough, dude.
1:23:47 Dax Shepard? Well, Nikki, I had high hopes for this. I was quite confident this would be great and it was way better than I even anticipated.
1:23:53 Speaker 02 Oh my God, that's so nice. It really felt like a hang. Good. I was in the middle of it, just like, why am I so comfortable? It doesn't usually go like this.
1:24:00 Dax Shepard? Well, this was a blast. I hope you'll come back. Oh, I really want to tell people, people should go see the Alive and Unwell Tour. It's in the height of it right now.
1:24:08 Speaker 02 We just started really. I've never performed in front of this many people in my life.
1:24:11 Dax Shepard? The theaters are also beautiful. Beautiful, right? It's a special honor to be able to play at those places.
1:24:15 Speaker 02 It really is. This is new to me. I was doing theater tours for the past five years and you'd sell 70%. Sometimes you sell out. It's a big deal. And now
1:24:21 Dax Shepard? You're adding dates.
1:24:22 Speaker 02 Adding dates and there's a little bit of, I'm the same person I was before. Maybe these people are wrong that are coming out, but it's actually really exciting because I'm trying to embrace, no, more people should see me. This is the right thing. I'm having imposter syndrome problems, but for the first time in my life, I am working so much harder on my standup than I ever have. It was always just something that kind of came naturally. I didn't have to really focus that hard. And now I'm kind of doing the same thing I did with the Golden Globes and the roast. And I'm looking at my material that way. Let's punch it up and make it as hard hitting as those. Cause I can do it. It's just more work. And so I'm taking this very seriously. This isn't just any standup tour and I'm roasting every city I go to.
1:24:55 Dax Shepard? You're doing like six Boston dates?
1:24:57 Speaker 02 It's insane.
1:24:58 Dax Shepard? Fucking nuts.
1:24:59 Speaker 02 Eight New York dates.
1:25:01 Dax Shepard? Yeah. So go to www.nickiglazer.com with an S and go quick because I was just there. And so many of the shows are already sold out. Congratulations. You so deserve it. And I'm really happy for you and you're gonna make so much money. And I hope you buy something obnoxious and saying.
1:25:16 Speaker 01 Yeah. And you don't have to spend it on your kids.
1:25:18 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:25:19 Speaker 01 But Taylor's not on tour anymore.
1:25:21 Speaker 02 You're gonna save so much money. That's a good point.
1:25:23 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:25:25 Dax Shepard? All right, Nikki, this was a blast. Come back.
1:25:28 Dax Shepard? Stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong.
1:25:36 Dax Shepard? The current confusion, and I get it, but I feel like we've said it, which is like, I'm, why are Mondays now on video? Right?
1:25:43 Speaker 02 Oh.
1:25:44 Dax Shepard? And then I say, oh, we offer to the guest. If they, if they're up for video, then that's fun. And then they go, well, you said it, you wouldn't have never do that. Cause it wouldn't be vulnerable. To which I reply, I did think that. And then we had Adam Scott on and it was like one of the most beautiful, connected, vulnerable episodes. And I said, that's not true. I found that out.
1:26:04 Speaker 01 Yeah. I mean, also you can listen, you can keep listening. No one has to watch this. If you, if you prefer to listen, you should listen.
1:26:13 Dax Shepard? Keep listening.
1:26:13 Speaker 01 But some people really enjoy seeing a visual and we've enjoyed it more than we thought. We've enjoyed doing it more than we thought. So we figured, you know, why not offer that up when we can?
1:26:25 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:26:26 Speaker 01 Also, we do have guests coming up that aren't on video because of that exact thing where it just
1:26:32 Dax Shepard? They don't want to be on camera.
1:26:32 Speaker 01 They don't want to be on camera.
1:26:33 Dax Shepard? I get it.
1:26:34 Speaker 01 Slash even we've made some decisions like This specific person is probably better to not.
1:26:39 Dax Shepard? That's right.
1:26:40 Speaker 01 Cause it's more intimate for them.
1:26:42 Dax Shepard? You're right. Should we get right into the sim stuff?
1:26:44 Speaker 01 Yeah, me and you have both have sim stories and we've been dying to tell each other.
1:26:47 Dax Shepard? Yeah, cuz it came up yesterday when we were doing um intros.
1:26:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:26:53 Dax Shepard? And we were mad we weren't recording the fact check because I had the ultimate sim experience.
1:26:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:26:59 Dax Shepard? Boy, I kinda want you to go first.
1:27:01 Speaker 01 You do? Okay, cuz mine's gonna be less. Yeah.
1:27:03 Dax Shepard? Well, just mine has a visual component.
1:27:05 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine to go first. Mine isn't.
1:27:08 Dax Shepard? Your stories are also better.
1:27:10 Speaker 01 No, they're not.
1:27:10 Dax Shepard? They are. They they're just so twisty and turny. Like, I never know.
1:27:13 Speaker 01 Well, those cubs.
1:27:14 Dax Shepard? As we've said, you're like the M. Night Shyamalan of just normal pedestrian life.
1:27:19 Speaker 01 Oh.
1:27:20 Dax Shepard? Is that what we were saying? No.
1:27:20 Speaker 01 No, you said Seinfeld.
1:27:21 Dax Shepard? Seinfeld. Yeah, it's way more Seinfeld. I don't know where I just.
1:27:24 Speaker 01 But M. Night Shyamalan, I get it. It's like you don't, you really don't know.
1:27:27 Dax Shepard? Until the last frame.
1:27:28 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:27:29 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:27:30 Speaker 01 Okay, so my sim story is our last fact check. We were talking about dating and.
1:27:37 Dax Shepard? Oh, the matchmaker.
1:27:39 Speaker 01 The matchmaker.
1:27:40 Dax Shepard? And the ghosting.
1:27:41 Speaker 01 The ghosting. You saying, I I I wish you would just go talk to people.
1:27:46 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:27:48 Speaker 01 And, you know.
1:27:49 Dax Shepard? Being the calling business, not the.
1:27:51 Speaker 01 Exactly, not the receiving.
1:27:53 Dax Shepard? Business.
1:27:53 Speaker 01 Okay, so we had that whole conversation. The next day, I was on Instagram, the Instagram app.
1:28:04 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:28:05 Speaker 01 And there was someone whose story I saw that I um thought was fantastic.
1:28:13 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:28:14 Speaker 01 I followed this person and really, really like this person um from afar. I don't know. I don't know him. But our paths have crossed many moons ago.
1:28:27 Dax Shepard? Interesting.
1:28:27 Speaker 01 And so I I I follow him and I.
1:28:30 Dax Shepard? In the driveway while he was visiting his daughter? That would be Sean Penn.
1:28:33 Speaker 01 Oh, no.
1:28:36 Speaker 01 No, um, he is so funny. I just find him to be the funniest person.
1:28:43 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:28:44 Speaker 01 And, um, so anyway, I'm watching these videos and I'm laughing and, and I, I text a friend who I know sort of knows him.
1:28:53 Dax Shepard? Yeah, great, great.
1:28:54 Speaker 01 And I said, hey, blank, hey, this person's name.
1:29:00 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:29:00 Speaker 01 Is he straight and single? Do you know?
1:29:03 Dax Shepard? Uh huh.
1:29:03 Speaker 01 She said, I'm pretty certain he's straight. I don't know if he's.
1:29:08 Dax Shepard? That's pretty certain.
1:29:09 Speaker 01 We don't always know. We don't always know.
1:29:11 Dax Shepard? Okay, okay.
1:29:12 Speaker 01 She said, I'm, I'm almost certain he's straight. I don't know if he's single.
1:29:16 Dax Shepard? Yeah, hurdle number two.
1:29:18 Speaker 01 Yes. And she said, the last time I saw him, I was walking around the reservoir. So we should start walking around the reservoir.
1:29:25 Dax Shepard? Oh, wow.
1:29:26 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, that's great. That's fun. We made some jokes. Okay?
1:29:30 Dax Shepard? Yeah. Was he, he or she joking or sincerely?
1:29:33 Speaker 01 I mean, I guess like it's sort of half joking. Like, we're not really gonna just like.
1:29:37 Dax Shepard? Anyways, cause it'll be funny anyways, cause we're doing this thing.
1:29:40 Speaker 01 Sure. The next day, the next day, I was walking down the street and I walked past him.
1:29:47 Dax Shepard? No.
1:29:48 Speaker 01 I like had such a visceral reaction for so many reasons. One, it was just like.
1:29:54 Dax Shepard? This is a big challenge that the universe put like, I'm, I.
1:29:58 Speaker 01 I know.
1:29:58 Dax Shepard? Oh. Fuck.
1:30:00 Speaker 01 I know you're not gonna like where this goes, but it was, it was, it was like the, what's the universe doing? Is it, is it telling me like?
1:30:08 Dax Shepard? Go say hi is what it's telling. There's nothing to interpret here. This is, this is as linear as it gets.
1:30:14 Speaker 01 And I walked past him and I went to the store.
1:30:19 Dax Shepard? And in person, did you get a PQ? Were you like, oh, wow. Yeah, in person.
1:30:22 Speaker 01 Well, I didn't want to stare.
1:30:24 Dax Shepard? Okay.
1:30:25 Speaker 01 Um, I got it. I got a shock to my system because of the overwhelm of the coincidence.
1:30:31 Dax Shepard? Yes.
1:30:32 Speaker 01 And I did not want. To make a thing, but I, and so I went to this store and just like jumped into this.
1:30:40 Dax Shepard? To hide.
1:30:40 Speaker 01 Store to hide.
1:30:41 Dax Shepard? Collect yourself.
1:30:42 Speaker 01 And text my friend, of course.
1:30:43 Dax Shepard? Oh, right.
1:30:44 Speaker 01 And she said, she said, did you say hi? And I said, no, I don't, I didn't.
1:30:50 Dax Shepard? I don't know how to say hi.
1:30:50 Speaker 01 I said, I said, I don't know how.
1:30:54 Speaker 01 And then she said, and then this is why things get kind of confusing, right? Cause then she was like, okay, yeah, maybe that is best. Maybe, I know, I know you wouldn't like that part.
1:31:05 Dax Shepard? Give me her number.
1:31:06 Speaker 01 No, she said.
1:31:07 Dax Shepard? Do I already have her number?
1:31:09 Speaker 01 I think so.
1:31:09 Dax Shepard? Okay.
1:31:09 Speaker 01 She said, maybe you should, like, an introduction is better. And so then I was like, yeah, I don't know. Anyway, I, I shopped at the store, I probably bought something.
1:31:20 Dax Shepard? Nervously.
1:31:21 Speaker 01 Yeah, and then I walked back out and back passed.
1:31:25 Dax Shepard? Oh, great. This is like the girl with the cowboy hat. I was trying to take penne over.
1:31:28 Speaker 01 Exactly.
1:31:30 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah.
1:31:30 Speaker 01 I walked back past and I like, I like shook my head a little bit.
1:31:35 Dax Shepard? To try to get a little attention.
1:31:36 Speaker 01 So that my pheromones, my pheromones could spread.
1:31:38 Dax Shepard? I wanna play like a dog wag.
1:31:39 Speaker 01 Like the dog tail.
1:31:40 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah.
1:31:41 Speaker 01 Yeah, and that was it. It was just wild.
1:31:44 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:31:46 Speaker 01 And I, okay, and then I told Jess about this.
1:31:49 Dax Shepard? Mm-hmm.
1:31:49 Speaker 01 And he was like, you told yourself if this happened again, you would say something. And I forgot I did do that. Like, remember the guy I saw in New York who I thought was so hot? And I, and I thought, oh, I should just say, hey, you're so, hey, just so you know, you're so attractive.
1:32:05 Dax Shepard? I love looking at you.
1:32:06 Speaker 01 Have a great day. Remember after him, I was like, I should have said it.
1:32:10 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:32:10 Speaker 01 And then after the hot guy at the. At the, at Brentwood Country Mart. What's the bracelet?
1:32:17 Dax Shepard? At the tower, you couldn't get your bracelets on?
1:32:20 Speaker 01 Oh, that's separate. There was nobody.
1:32:22 Dax Shepard? Had the guy, had a guy put them on?
1:32:24 Speaker 01 There was no guy.
1:32:25 Dax Shepard? Okay, we can't count that one.
1:32:26 Speaker 01 Yeah, that doesn't count, but the other guy at Brentwood Country Mart that was so attractive.
1:32:30 Dax Shepard? Yeah, how many street cars are you gonna watch go by?
1:32:32 Speaker 01 I know, I am starting to think.
1:32:34 Dax Shepard? You should gotta get mad at yourself. That's a good motivator. Like, that's when you, like, you're fucking, I've had enough of this. Who, I'm gonna live my whole life like this? Fuck this.
1:32:42 Speaker 01 I'm like 4% there.
1:32:44 Dax Shepard? Oh, jeez, I thought this would take you into the 40s.
1:32:47 Speaker 01 It was, well, I, I didn't know how, I could take it as I'm mad at myself, I should have said something, or. Wow, the universe.
1:32:57 Dax Shepard? Is Trixie?
1:32:57 Speaker 01 Loves me.
1:33:00 Dax Shepard? Sure.
1:33:00 Speaker 01 Gave me something and not I didn't do anything about it.
1:33:05 Dax Shepard? But it's only gonna give, it's only gonna try to help you so many times.
1:33:08 Speaker 01 Really?
1:33:08 Dax Shepard? Yes, if you don't want its help, it's gonna stop.
1:33:11 Speaker 01 A universe.
1:33:12 Dax Shepard? You need to be way the fuck above four percent. I just, as your friend, I need to yell at you a little bit.
1:33:16 Speaker 01 Forty.
1:33:17 Dax Shepard? You need to be in the forty eights. I'm going eighty two percent. He knows you. Here, comedy girl, you got this popular podcast. We're on a very popular podcast. That's why we're staying at this hotel, Mr. Customs Man in India.
1:33:29 Speaker 01 Oh, my God, oh, my God.
1:33:30 Dax Shepard? Yeah, it still haunts me. I'll think about that. That's like the Neve Campbell thing.
1:33:34 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
1:33:34 Dax Shepard? I'll be thinking about that for you.
1:33:36 Speaker 01 Wait, okay, what happened again? Yeah, you told.
1:33:38 Dax Shepard? The Indian customs man.
1:33:41 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
1:33:41 Dax Shepard? When he didn't believe I was staying at the nice hotel and he wanted the first, the phone number, then he wanted the address, then he wanted like, I don't know what he wanted. He did not believe that we were staying there.
1:33:50 Speaker 01 What are you doing here?
1:33:50 Dax Shepard? And I said. So, well, I'm one of the hosts of a very popular podcast and we're in town to interview Bill Gates. And I'm like, he didn't know what podcast was. He didn't know what popular was it. I don't think he knew what Bill Gates was.
1:34:03 Speaker 01 He didn't give a fuck about any of that.
1:34:05 Dax Shepard? It was a three strikes and you're out. We're so lucky I got let into that country.
1:34:09 Speaker 01 I know, that was so funny. Okay, anyway, so that was just, that was so sip, the next day. The next day.
1:34:17 Dax Shepard? The next, yeah. You gotta listen, girl.
1:34:21 Speaker 01 I know.
1:34:22 Dax Shepard? He said Maru a lot, too. Oh, my, spray.
1:34:28 Dax Shepard? He's probably a pervert. Probably wants you to shit on him.
1:34:30 Speaker 01 Rob, if you see him at Maru.
1:34:31 Dax Shepard? Ask him if he likes girls to shit on a glass, coffee table.
1:34:36 Dax Shepard? People are trying to get. And tell her your friends open to it as long as there's not been like 10 other people who have done it. As long as she's the first.
1:34:43 Speaker 01 Exactly.
1:34:43 Dax Shepard? Well, you could be up to the third.
1:34:46 Speaker 01 No, I want to be the first.
1:34:48 Dax Shepard? Okay. Yeah, you have standards. Okay.
1:34:52 Speaker 01 Okay, now you have a si- moment to now, let's hear it.
1:34:54 Dax Shepard? Okay, I pray that you think this is as insane as I do. So my friend Oliver apparently is in Toronto, and he goes to a museum.
1:35:03 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:35:04 Dax Shepard? And then he sends me these two photos from a museum.
1:35:07 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:35:08 Dax Shepard? And I will explain to the listener. This is in a museum and it is an Ames chair that was made between 1948 and 1950, designed between 1948, 1950. It's called Dax Armchair, which Dax isn't a fucking word in 1948. Not only is it a Dax Armchair, it was designed at UCLA and manufactured in Michigan.
1:35:37 Speaker 01 Oh.
1:35:38 Dax Shepard? Are you fucking Dax Armchair?
1:35:42 Speaker 01 God.
1:35:42 Dax Shepard? Does that not zap your brain? And that's not possible. In a museum, Dax Armchair. They should write fucking expert after it.
1:35:51 Speaker 01 Well, I thought when this first popped up, I thought it was something for the sh- I thought something in a museum.
1:35:56 Dax Shepard? This is in a museum of an Ames chair. By the way, affordable. It was 20 bucks. It was meant to be a cheap.
1:36:04 Speaker 01 And we're cheap.
1:36:05 Dax Shepard? Yes, I'm a cheap- I'm a cheapie. Dax Armchair. Why did they use that word? That wasn't a word. That's not a name.
1:36:15 Speaker 01 Is.
1:36:16 Dax Shepard? It was made at UCLA and manufactured in Michigan.
1:36:20 Speaker 01 The Dax listed at about $20 each.
1:36:23 Dax Shepard? I'm gonna read the whole thing.
1:36:24 Speaker 01 $100 a monitor.
1:36:24 Dax Shepard? Dax Armchair, designed 1948 to 1950 by Charles Eames and Ray Eames, with staff of the engineering department, University of California, Los Angeles. This model made from 1955 to about 1972 by Herman Miller Furniture Co., Zeeland, Michigan. Molded polyester fiberglass composite steel rubber. I used to wear rubbers when I was single. That's a stretch. The chair design shared a second prize. Of course, I never win either.
1:36:56 Speaker 01 You never win.
1:36:58 Dax Shepard? My birthday's the second. The chair design shared a second prize loser in the 1948 international competition for low-cost furniture design, sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, one of my favorite cities. The Dax listed at about $20 each, or $100 in modern terms.
1:37:18 Speaker 01 You have $100.
1:37:20 Dax Shepard? And the French name for it is Fatule Dax.
1:37:24 Speaker 01 Fatule?
1:37:25 Dax Shepard? Fatule Dax.
1:37:26 Speaker 01 Fatuleye?
1:37:27 Dax Shepard? Fatuleye Dax.
1:37:29 Speaker 01 Wow.
1:37:30 Dax Shepard? Monica, would you agree this is fucking insane?
1:37:33 Speaker 01 That's insane.
1:37:34 Dax Shepard? Dax armchair.
1:37:36 Speaker 01 We gotta get one, obviously.
1:37:38 Dax Shepard? For sure. 20 bucks, who won it?
1:37:40 Speaker 01 No, 100 in modern.
1:37:41 Dax Shepard? Oh, 100.
1:37:42 Speaker 01 Oh, never mind.
1:37:43 Dax Shepard? I wanna contact this museum and just sit next to it so people can crack up.
1:37:48 Speaker 01 Where is it?
1:37:49 Dax Shepard? Toronto.
1:37:49 Speaker 01 Oh, we're not going there.
1:37:50 Dax Shepard? That was my first place I ever went in a hot tub. The Harbor Castle, family vacation. I read that in bed yesterday morning and I like, I couldn't, I'm like, when is it too much? I'll cry. Maybe I'll cry a bit tonight about it.
1:38:05 Speaker 01 You didn't cry about this?
1:38:07 Dax Shepard? I was just.
1:38:08 Speaker 01 Stunned.
1:38:09 Dax Shepard? How crazy could it get before you have to go like, I don't understand?
1:38:13 Speaker 01 I know. That's how I am feeling. Like, yeah, how explicit do they have to be, the SIM engineers? They're begging at, I think they wanna, I'm getting nervous though because Eric says the more we're on to it, they'll unplug, they'll start unplugging.
1:38:32 Dax Shepard? Right. They'll get suspicious of us and start like, uh, hampering our speech. I'm shook by that chair. And I must own it. It doesn't look terribly comfortable.
1:38:42 Speaker 01 No, but we still, we needed it.
1:38:45 Dax Shepard? What if I just couldn't, ever, no matter what? It's round, I'm round. It has four legs, I do too.
1:38:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, we need that in here 100%. So this is a ding ding ding-ish because my favorite podcast, Nobody's Listening, right, with Elizabeth and Andy. Elizabeth loves signs like this. She lost both of her parents when she was quite young, so she often. Sees them in the universe in ways.
1:39:10 Dax Shepard? Right, they're winking at her.
1:39:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, she loves that and I, and, and I like it too. And that is a sign from the universe.
1:39:20 Dax Shepard? I know.
1:39:20 Speaker 01 It was a sign. It was a sign to like, keep going.
1:39:24 Dax Shepard? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it is all fine.
1:39:27 Speaker 01 Exactly.
1:39:28 Dax Shepard? Yeah. I told you this about, um, Laird Hamilton. Gabrielle said that he looks at her. She's like, I love his presence in my life because he's just unflappable, right? And she said that once in a while, when she's frail, he looks at her and he goes, it's gonna be fine. It is fine.
1:39:46 Speaker 01 Yeah. Yeah, you did say this.
1:39:47 Dax Shepard? Yeah, or it's gonna be okay. It is okay.
1:39:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:39:51 Dax Shepard? Right now, it's okay.
1:39:52 Speaker 01 I love that. I really love that.
1:39:55 Dax Shepard? It's a very steadying.
1:39:56 Speaker 01 Also, you know, we have a friend who did hypnosis and I think I've said this before, but I think about it all the time.
1:40:04 Dax Shepard? Are you the friend in the strikes room? You did hypnosis?
1:40:07 Speaker 01 No, it wasn't me.
1:40:08 Dax Shepard? And the addict?
1:40:09 Speaker 01 Yeah, I do. Listen to that episode. That was an interesting episode.
1:40:12 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:40:13 Speaker 01 I got hypnotized real time on this show.
1:40:15 Dax Shepard? That's right.
1:40:16 Speaker 01 Yeah. Now, this friend got hypnosis to stop vaping. Part of it is you say, I used to do that. I don't do that anymore. Never again.
1:40:28 Dax Shepard? I used to do that. I don't do that. Never again.
1:40:32 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:40:32 Dax Shepard? I hate that sentence.
1:40:33 Speaker 01 I love it. I think it's so, I think the, I don't do that anymore.
1:40:39 Dax Shepard? Yeah, it's strong.
1:40:39 Speaker 01 Is so strong. It's actually, it's like the past, the present, the future, all in one thing.
1:40:46 Dax Shepard? Right, yes.
1:40:47 Speaker 01 But the present is the one that is the most impactful and it's similar to, it is okay.
1:40:52 Dax Shepard? Yes.
1:40:53 Speaker 01 I don't do that anymore.
1:40:54 Dax Shepard? Yeah. My thing is to go like, what has been helpful to me is to go like, whatever. When I quit dip or any of the stuff I quit, which is all the time. I go like, oh my God, I want it. I want this so bad. And in 10 minutes, I won't.
1:41:10 Speaker 01 Yeah. Like, it doesn't help me.
1:41:12 Dax Shepard? It doesn't. For me, like, knowing it, yes, this is an urge, it'll be passing. And then, believe it or not, in 10 minutes, this, you're not, you won't be fighting that.
1:41:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:41:22 Dax Shepard? It is very comforting to me because generally, when I get that strong compulsion to do something I don't want to do, I, my brain tells me I'm going to feel that way forever until I do the thing I want to do.
1:41:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, but it's tricky because some things.
1:41:37 Dax Shepard? Some things never change.
1:41:40 Speaker 01 Some things, I guess, depending on your addiction, some things don't go away. There's something to me about the mantra, if you're really trying to quit something, of just like, not like, I won't want this, because I think that's a lie for certain things, for certain people and certain addictions. Like, I, I think it's, it's not like, don't worry, you won't want this soon because.
1:42:06 Dax Shepard? That's not a reality.
1:42:07 Speaker 01 It might not be a reality. It's just like, yeah, I used to do that. I don't do that anymore.
1:42:12 Dax Shepard? I will say though.
1:42:13 Speaker 01 That again.
1:42:13 Dax Shepard? I don't, I don't want to drink.
1:42:16 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:42:17 Dax Shepard? I really, that, that is a miracle in my life.
1:42:19 Speaker 01 For you, that's.
1:42:20 Dax Shepard? That's a miracle.
1:42:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:42:22 Dax Shepard? That I was, as I say in the program, like, relieved of the obsession. That was kind of unimaginable the first year.
1:42:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:42:28 Dax Shepard? Oh, I'm just gonna fucking, every time I walk by a bar for the rest of my life, I'm gonna want to go inside. And I gotta talk myself out of not going inside for the rest of my life.
1:42:36 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:42:37 Dax Shepard? But I don't think about it ever.
1:42:39 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:42:40 Dax Shepard? I could be like, surrounded by Jack Daniels bottles and it doesn't even, I'm just like, oh yeah.
1:42:44 Speaker 01 That is lucky.
1:42:45 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:42:46 Speaker 01 I don't know if that's for everyone, though.
1:42:48 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:42:51 Speaker 03 Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.
1:43:03 Speaker 01 This is a ding ding ding, because this is for Nikki and we do talk about addiction.
1:43:07 Dax Shepard? I love this episode. I gotta say, I told her, it was like, we have these episodes every now and again. They really fill my tank up and they make me really, really excited for our job. Not that I ever don't like our job. I always like our job, but sometimes I'm really turbocharged and it really hits me like, no, I love our job.
1:43:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:43:28 Dax Shepard? To get to like, have some thing in your head and then can like, work through it with the actual human being that we have access to that. And then they're so incredible and fun. Yeah, I just, I like, let's put a real spring in my step, this episode.
1:43:43 Speaker 01 Not to brag.
1:43:44 Dax Shepard? Go ahead and brag.
1:43:46 Speaker 01 Not to brag.
1:43:48 Dax Shepard? That's a sign of really good friends.
1:43:49 Speaker 01 You can brag.
1:43:50 Dax Shepard? I think it is.
1:43:51 Speaker 01 Yeah, but not, I mean, I, I guess the armchairs are my good friends.
1:43:55 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:43:58 Speaker 01 I got two numbers that week.
1:44:00 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:44:01 Speaker 01 And hers was one of them. And that was pretty cool. I played it really cool. And.
1:44:09 Dax Shepard? Too cool?
1:44:10 Speaker 01 Well, no, because you exchanged numbers.
1:44:14 Dax Shepard? Uh huh.
1:44:15 Speaker 01 And, you know, I didn't, I sat back.
1:44:17 Dax Shepard? We had a little, oh, right. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Great.
1:44:21 Speaker 01 Like, as she was leaving, you, you got her number. And then I, you know, I, I went in the corner during that part.
1:44:27 Dax Shepard? Peeed on a, on our tree.
1:44:29 Speaker 01 Yeah. And then.
1:44:31 Dax Shepard? It's a little animal you are.
1:44:32 Speaker 01 And she was like, oh, God, what's she, okay.
1:44:34 Dax Shepard? That's a thing she does. It's a good luck thing for us.
1:44:38 Speaker 01 She does that at the end of every episode. And then she reached out to me.
1:44:42 Dax Shepard? That's wonderful, because it, it, it quiets any voice in your head that she didn't want to give you your number.
1:44:48 Speaker 01 Yeah, I don't.
1:44:48 Dax Shepard? Because once in a while, we exchange numbers with the guests.
1:44:51 Speaker 01 You do.
1:44:51 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:44:52 Speaker 01 I don't, like, I will never.
1:44:55 Dax Shepard? Five times.
1:44:56 Speaker 01 If they, I will never instigate it, ever.
1:45:01 Dax Shepard? Most of the time, I want their number. Like, I like them and I'd love to, at some point in my life, if I want to say hi to them, I want to be able to do that.
1:45:08 Speaker 01 God, this is, this is back to me and you at the bar.
1:45:11 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:45:12 Speaker 01 You get the, you always, you're just like, give me your number.
1:45:15 Dax Shepard? Yeah, because I might want to say hi. I might see you in something and I want to be able to tell you I loved it or whatever it is, but it's perfect for you because you didn't.
1:45:23 Speaker 01 I don't.
1:45:24 Dax Shepard? You didn't ask for it and then she reached out to you. Yeah, because we love her. We love her.
1:45:28 Speaker 01 We love her.
1:45:29 Dax Shepard? We're the number one fans.
1:45:30 Speaker 01 Yeah, she's, she's so great. She's so great. Okay, a couple of little fackies. Gracious loser face.
1:45:36 Dax Shepard? Gracious loser face.
1:45:37 Speaker 01 That's from friends.
1:45:39 Dax Shepard? Oh, why did they have to confront that?
1:45:42 Speaker 01 Because Joey, um.
1:45:44 Dax Shepard? Oh, he's nominated for a daytime drama, soap opera, soapy.
1:45:48 Speaker 01 Soapy Sudsy.
1:45:50 Dax Shepard? A Sudsy.
1:45:50 Speaker 01 And, and Rachel is teaching him about gracious loser.
1:45:55 Dax Shepard? And did he have a, I'm guessing he probably had a really preposterous look on his face.
1:45:59 Speaker 01 He got actually mad.
1:46:01 Dax Shepard? Oh, he did.
1:46:02 Speaker 01 When he lost.
1:46:02 Dax Shepard? When he lost.
1:46:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:46:04 Dax Shepard? Oh, that's great.
1:46:04 Speaker 01 Yeah. God, it's a.
1:46:05 Dax Shepard? I wish someone would do that. They're on their face and it's not their name and they go, fuck this. Fucking, they stand up and walk out. That would be awesome. I feel like some of those people. And some of those people deserved to, like, some of these people have been nominated 15 fucking times in the same category and not one. Oh.
1:46:24 Speaker 01 I know.
1:46:24 Dax Shepard? So you stop inviting me.
1:46:25 Speaker 01 Exactly. Okay, do they do knee tucks? Yes, a knee tuck, also known as a knee lift, cosmetic procedure that improves the appearance of the knees. They can address loose skin, excess fat, and other signs of aging. Speaking of skin, I did the thing. I haven't done it in so long, but I did the thing you're never supposed to do where I, I like felt something sort of under the skin, just a tiny bit and I've been.
1:46:52 Dax Shepard? A hint of a pimple?
1:46:53 Speaker 01 Yeah, but I don't know if it's a pimple because it's been there for a long time. It's under, it's like under, but it's not a cyst. It feels like I can like, I can like feel it, more like a pin prick, like a splinter.
1:47:06 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah.
1:47:07 Speaker 01 Um, and so yesterday I started fucking with it and now I created a whole issue on my face. And we're about to, Kristen's hosting the SAG Awards. By the time this comes out, it will already happen. Also ding ding ding, Nikki, Golden Globes.
1:47:22 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:47:23 Speaker 01 Um, and I'm there to help her. Write her stuff and so I'll be there and now I have a whole ish.
1:47:30 Dax Shepard? Where is it?
1:47:31 Speaker 01 It's right here. Yeah, you can see it. It's okay.
1:47:33 Dax Shepard? No, money.
1:47:34 Speaker 01 It's okay. I just, I, I was just like, why don't we learn these lessons?
1:47:39 Dax Shepard? I know. The face stuff is impossible. I, I can't tell you how often I'm pushing on something going, don't do this, don't do this, this is a mistake. Oh my God, I think I'm almost there. I am gonna get it. I'm gonna stop doing this. Okay, you're gonna finish this and you are not allowed to look in the mirror and start touching this again. Like I, I go through this madness all the time.
1:47:56 Speaker 01 I know.
1:47:57 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:47:58 Speaker 01 All right. Now, we talked about baby girl.
1:48:02 Dax Shepard? Oh, yeah. Talk about baby.
1:48:04 Speaker 01 Baby girl has two meanings.
1:48:06 Dax Shepard? Okay.
1:48:07 Speaker 01 Baby girl is a slang term used to describe an attractive man, often a celebrity or fictional character. It's a term of endearment that's become popular with Gen Z. Like a lot of people are like Austin Butler is baby girl. Timothy Chalamet, Chalamet is baby girl.
1:48:22 Dax Shepard? Yeah, yeah.
1:48:23 Speaker 01 Um.
1:48:24 Dax Shepard? We would have said in my era, a pretty boy.
1:48:26 Speaker 01 Yes. Probably correct. Attractive, cute, or vulnerable.
1:48:32 Dax Shepard? Oh, vulnerable.
1:48:33 Speaker 01 Also, it's this sexual dynamic.
1:48:37 Dax Shepard? Oh.
1:48:38 Speaker 01 Based on the, well, not ba-, I don't know if it happened first, but the movie Nicole Kidman, Baby Girl. There's milk, she drinks milk.
1:48:45 Dax Shepard? Like a kitty or?
1:48:46 Speaker 01 Well, she does drink like a cat and I don't know if it's different from when she also drinks milk because they've made that joke a lot on all these shows. And I fell asleep during like 10 minutes of the movie, so that might have been when she drank the milk.
1:48:58 Dax Shepard? Yeah, this is like when you fell asleep during, or you shut without a pedal off, or you fell asleep. Took a shower in the middle. You took a shower, yeah.
1:49:05 Speaker 01 We had a recording.
1:49:06 Dax Shepard? Yeah, I understand.
1:49:06 Speaker 01 I had to get to.
1:49:07 Dax Shepard? You timed it perfectly. You missed my racist.
1:49:10 Speaker 01 I missed your racist thing. That was my racism. But that was probably my dad saying, go shower now.
1:49:15 Dax Shepard? Quick one.
1:49:15 Speaker 01 Yeah. So anyway, baby girl is like a dominant woman being treated as a sub sexually, like dominant in life.
1:49:25 Dax Shepard? Yeah.
1:49:25 Speaker 01 Being kind of subordinate sexually. I think often to a man who might be subordinate to her in life.
1:49:36 Dax Shepard? Ooh.
1:49:36 Speaker 01 You know what I mean? Like.
1:49:37 Dax Shepard? This is kinky.
1:49:38 Speaker 01 Well, yeah, and baby girl, she's the boss and he's the intern.
1:49:41 Dax Shepard? Oh.
1:49:42 Speaker 01 See, I wanted it to be hotter and I didn't find it hot.
1:49:46 Dax Shepard? What if she was coughed up a hairball, like she got too into the role, that she was hacking and stuff?
1:49:52 Speaker 01 I wonder if you'll think it's sexy because I, I. In theory could see it being sexy, but then when I was watching it, I was like, it's not really for me.
1:50:02 Dax Shepard? I wouldn't like tie me up. No, thank you. Handcuffs. No, thank you.
1:50:07 Speaker 01 What about, okay, at one time you dated this kind of older model?
1:50:13 Dax Shepard? Oh, uh huh.
1:50:13 Speaker 01 Were you kind of subordinate there?
1:50:15 Dax Shepard? No, no, but it was, that was, I would say more like two equals wrestling match.
1:50:23 Speaker 01 Interesting. Uh, you mean physically?
1:50:26 Dax Shepard? Yeah, like she was aggressive.
1:50:28 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:50:29 Dax Shepard? I was equally aggressive back.
1:50:31 Speaker 01 Oh, okay.
1:50:31 Dax Shepard? Yeah, it was like, uh, but it was, there was no sub done. No.
1:50:40 Dax Shepard? She had a ma- she had a wrestling mask on.
1:50:43 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:50:44 Dax Shepard? Uh.
1:50:45 Speaker 01 Have you ever?
1:50:46 Dax Shepard? Been a sub?
1:50:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:50:49 Dax Shepard? No, I don't.
1:50:50 Speaker 01 Even with?
1:50:50 Dax Shepard? So, are you bringing up my molesting?
1:50:53 Speaker 01 No. Oh, my God. No, I was never.
1:51:03 Dax Shepard? The darker, the better.
1:51:07 Speaker 01 Okay, so you've never subbed?
1:51:08 Dax Shepard? No.
1:51:09 Speaker 01 You've never been a substitute teacher?
1:51:11 Dax Shepard? No, truly no shade to anyone. I've explored everything in my mind.
1:51:15 Speaker 01 Right.
1:51:15 Dax Shepard? I'm like up for anything and everything, so I would try it.
1:51:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:51:20 Dax Shepard? I don't, I don't care. I would try that.
1:51:23 Speaker 01 Would you?
1:51:23 Dax Shepard? If Kristen's like, I want to handcuff you and hit you with a fucking horse whip or whatever. I'd be like, yeah, okay, great.
1:51:29 Speaker 01 What if she asked you to drink milk out like a cat?
1:51:32 Dax Shepard? Yeah, great. I would do anything. There's nothing I want to do.
1:51:34 Speaker 01 That's fun.
1:51:35 Dax Shepard? But when I imagine whether I'd be enjoying it or not, it's kind of hard for me to lock in.
1:51:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, okay, well.
1:51:43 Dax Shepard? All right.
1:51:44 Speaker 01 Baby girl.
1:51:45 Dax Shepard? Baby girl.
1:51:45 Speaker 01 Okay, what did Taylor Swift?
1:51:50 Speaker 01 Good old Taylor Swift. Say, uh, to Nikki in response to her apology. Her apology said, "I love Taylor Swift. Unfortunately, I am featured in her documentary as part of a montage of asshats saying mean things about her, which is used to explain why she felt the need to escape from the spotlight for a year. It's insanely ironic because anyone who knows me knows I'm obnoxiously obsessed with her and her music. The soundbite was from an interview I did five years ago, and I say in such a shitty tone, 'She's too skinny, it bothers me, all of her model friends,' and it's just like, 'Come on.' This quote should be used as an example of projection in Psych 101 textbooks. If you're familiar with my, quote, 'work at all,' you know I talk openly about battling some kind of eating disorder for the past 17 years.
1:52:35 Speaker 01 I was probably feeling fat," again, that's in quotes, "feeling fat that day and was jealous, and I was only bothered by her model friends because I'd like to be her friend and I'm not a model."
1:52:44 Dax Shepard? Hmm, that's a strong apology.
1:52:46 Speaker 01 It is, very. Then Taylor said, "Wow, I appreciate this so much. One of the major themes of the doc is that we have the ability to change our opinions over time, to grow, to learn about ourselves. I'm so sorry to hear that you've struggled with some of the same things I've struggled with. Sending a massive hug."
1:53:03 Dax Shepard? Oh, that's very sweet. That is nice and repairing as a fucking thing can be.
1:53:09 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:53:10 Dax Shepard? Aspirational.
1:53:11 Speaker 01 It is. Um.
1:53:12 Dax Shepard? All right.
1:53:13 Speaker 01 All right.
1:53:14 Dax Shepard? Love you.
1:53:14 Speaker 01 Love you.
Previous Armchair Anonymous: DNA Testing Next Blaise Aguirre (on overcoming self-hatred) Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated